


a star of waning summer

by crownlessliestheking



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Angst, Aro/Ace Rey, Casual looks into Stormtrooper morality, Casual looks into the Jedi code, Doubt, Finn with a lightsaber, Force Sensitive Finn, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Grey Jedi Rey, Grief, Identity Issues, Leia is going to survive this, M/M, Note the use of those & tags as the relations in this one are strictly platonic, Past Lives, Poetroclus, Reincarnation fic, Sithspawn, There /is/ character death but only so much as we already know Achilles and Patroclus are dead, Told more as a series of snapshots than an actual and entire story, dark side temptation, happy endings, introspective, lots of parallels, not TLJ compliant, space drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 02:24:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12997761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: "...like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glitter in brilliance.” -The Iliad.-“Twice now you have ventured forth above Hades’ halls, and twice now you have returned to Elysium. Heroes, glory has been yours. Dare you try once more?” The three women intone together, aged faces hidden beneath hoods of black. One eye stares, pale as a corpse and unblinking as they speak. Six hands gnarled with age gesture commandingly; thirty fingers calloused, slim and their blackened tips no longer able to bleed, the consequence of weaving the cloth of fate itself.





	a star of waning summer

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by @punkrockdaisy on tumblr when this was a baby fic of less than 10k, and later on by Nix :)  
> It's my first Star Wars fic of any kind (and tbh, probably my last). I've been working for a while on this one, and it's actually the longest thing I've ever written. By necessity, it's being split into two parts, but the second will be out real soon.  
> Note that I started this in early 2016, and didn't really get on track with it until the summer of 2016 (and now)- it doesn't follow much of whatever it is they're going to do in TLJ and I am in fact posting this (and finishing it) before the movie premieres to the general public. The idea of Finn doing some campaigns for the former Stormtroopers is actually borrowed from a fic I read a while ago, when I was- actually reading SW fic. I'm not sure if others have done the same thing, but it was a real cool idea the way it was done in that one.

“…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”

- _Homer, The Iliad._

' “Will you come with me?” he asked.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.” '

- _Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles_

* * *

**i.**

“Twice now you have ventured forth above Hades’ halls, and twice now you have returned to Elysium. Heroes, glory has been yours. Dare you try once more?” The three women intone together, aged faces hidden beneath hoods of black. One eye stares, pale as a corpse and unblinking as they speak. Six hands gnarled with age gesture commandingly; thirty fingers calloused, slim and their blackened tips no longer able to bleed, the consequence of weaving the cloth of fate itself.

They summon a vision of a true paradise; golden and sure with lazy days under an eternal sun and tender nights under a moon strung high like a pearl in the sky, and a forever of each other.

“I shall,” Achilles says, his golden hair a shimmering halo. His eyes are hungry, the curve of his lips eager. The divinity in his blood always clamours for more.

“And you, Patroclus?” They ask, as if I could offer any other answer but ‘yes’. My blood yearns only for him, for the chance at glory with him.

“I shall,” I echo. Achilles smiles, beatific as he cups his hands, hands that have loved and killed and lost in equal measure, and kneels before the dream-clear waters of the river Lethe.

“Make me a good man,” he tells them, earnestness in the voice of a king. A mortal, commanding the Fates.

And he drinks.

“My request remains the same,” I murmur, watching his form fade and flicker, his eyes grow hazy as memories dissipate into nothing. “I would not be parted from him in this life, nor any other. And, as always, I wish to remember. Even if he does not.”

“Always, you have followed the son of Thetis and Peleus. And always, you will,” they agree. I am not to be deprived of my wish, and for this, I thank the gods.  A life without Achilles, I could not bear. “Drink, Patroclus, beloved of the Aristos Achaion. A drop, only, for knowing too young will drive you as mad as not knowing at all.”

There will be a sacrifice for my request, I know. The gods’ gifts are ever double-sided blades, but it is a price I was, am, always willing to pay.

I kneel, touch a finger to the river and feel its cold cut through me like a knife, lancing through me like Hector’s spear. A strange numbness unfurls through me as I behold the drop clinging to my fingertip, the three women’s eye trained on me is the last thing I see before I close my own eyes let the Lethe and its oblivion fall past my parted lips.

Achilles, I am coming.

!~!~!~!

**ii.**

Poe’s life is a whirlwind; forever busy, forever smiling, forever a phantom wind ruffling his dark curls and the siren song of the stars in his veins.

There is a war when he is born, though he does not remember it. Only a strange, detached absence that is somehow familiar. His parents fought for two years, they tell him, and they were heroes fighting for a new world, a new order, where he could grow up safe. There are stories, so many of them, of names like Leia Organa and Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker, of men and women touched by greatness. He never once wonders if he’s destined for the same, never once thinks (dreams) of having the Force, like Luke and the Jedi his parents murmur about. Even then, he knows it’s not for him.

There is this, instead: His mother, teaching him to fly in her A-wing and his chubby fingers grasping for the controls with a dexterity that surprises them both. He’s eager to please and eager to feel the weight of gravity fall away, to soar ever upwards. His father, pressing a kiss to his forehead and surprise jolting through him at the affectionate touch.

(His first flight, he will always remember, and he goes higher and faster as he grows, always looking for that feeling again. It’s like falling in love, from how those old holos describe it, but more _impossible_. In the skies, he’s a god, dangerous as that feeling may be).

And there is this: A funeral, and tears, and words upon words and his father and uncle crying and another young boy whose mother is still alive, one with too-big features on a pale face dotted with moles, who tries, just once, to make him feel better. It’s that boy’s parents with a warm hug and a spine of iron, a clap on the back and an offer to fly, one day, in a ship that’s a legend of its own. It’s a pang of loss that cuts him to the core, when he finally realizes she isn’t coming back.

There is a war too when he grows up, his idyllic childhood and the heroism of his parents bearing him upwards even through the despair that’s brought by so much death. But there are always wars, a small part of him remarks, bitter, even as he hushes it. He defects to the Resistance (it’s what his mother would want, would have done, what his father shakes his head at, his eyes unknowably sad and aged as he presses one kiss to his son’s forehead, a benediction, a blessing).

Missions upon missions, and he loses friends he considered to be family as the First Order grows. Luke Skywalker vanishes, his students slaughtered by the man who used to be Ben Solo, and when he sees General Organa cry, he learns what it is to _hate_. And it gets harder after that, with the First Order no longer the shattered Imperial remnant it once was, with Stormtroopers once more stationed in the Core and TIE fighters in the skies, with the New Republic still absurdly insisting that there can be peace, that appeasement and treaties are the way out.

There is no way out, other than war, Poe knows. And when General Organa tells him to go to Jakku, that there is someone there with a map to Luke Skywalker, a map to hope? It’s a slim chance, a race against the First Order. It’s the right thing to do. His parents would have gone. He goes.

!~!~!~!

The other boy has no memories of his early life; there is nothing of a childhood, of sunlight and trees and days whiled away with friends, nothing of parental love. There is only a lingering sense of loss, of discomfort, and a burning desire to prove himself. He is FN-2187.

There is only a series of immaculately-pressed uniforms, lectures, training, never being alone. Exaltations of the glory of the First Order, as saying things often enough leads you to believe it. Old films about the Empire, documentaries that praise it while highlighting the policies that led to its downfall- all due to the Resistance getting lucky, of legends erring on the side of caution where instead they should have acted. They are taught of Endor, and of the weakness of this New Republic that somehow brought the Empire to its knees.

They are not taught to lead, only to follow. The only truth is in the Order, and this is a truth that must be brought to the rest of the galaxy. There is nothing in him that dissents; he has seen what happens to the scant few who don’t believe everything they’re taught, don’t take to the lessons learned. Nor the reconditioning. He isn’t afraid, he doesn’t pretend. He simply believes.

Two figures stand above it all, watching, always watching. He feels the prickle of their gazes on his neck and straightens his posture, corrects his aim, practices in hand-to-hand combat until he’s one of the best in his year. For the Order, the perfect soldier; they do not know of the whisper inside him, dim like a distant star, pushing him onwards to greatness.

(They do not know of an echo that replies to it, reminding him that he can be good. But they suspect).

There is this: A simulation, attack on a New Republic bunker, objective to destroy the heavy blaster. They advance, and though he knows it isn’t real, FN-2187’s blood _sings_. They’re close, so close to victory, when another falls behind, and his training insists he leave Slip. Nines and Zeroes insist that he leave Slip. Victory cannot be sacrificed for one weak link, he knows, and Stormtroopers are expendable. He rescues Slip, anyway, and something kindles warm in his chest, even as they win. Against the odds.

There is this: Praise, afterwards, on his kill count. On his strategies. He stands a little straighter before the shining chrome armor that denotes Captain Phasma’s rank, salutes when needed. She commends him, and he is-

( _before a crowd, screaming his name, he is the greatest, destined for glory, the best of them all)_

-gracious as he accepts her words, even the warning that comes after. She tells him not to jeopardize the mission for a weak link, and when he answers, swears that he will never do it again, it is a lie.

There is no such thing as friendship in the Stormtrooper program, after all, but Slip saves his life in their last mission as cadets, when he stands frozen with his blaster in a loose grip that should have been beaten out of him. His hesitation doesn’t matter in the end, the man dies at Slip’s hands, but- his own are clean. There are no blood on his hands, he failed, he is still _good_ , isn’t he?

FN-2187 is made a full Stormtrooper, doubt tamped down, and sent off to battle almost immediately. He is faceless, nameless amongst the rest of the contingent that shadow Kylo Ren, a man like a bleeding wound, to the desolation of Jakku on his quest to hunt down another legend.

(He isn’t great, not yet).

!~!~!~!

**iii.**

The interrogation room is freezing cold, all shining, sterile metal now spattered with blood. He doesn’t envy the ones who will have to clean it- and what’s going to be left of him- up. Pain blooms bright and angry along his ribs, his stomach, his face, and his skin itches where the blood has dried tight against it. The ‘trooper leaves, for now, but Poe doesn’t let himself relax.

Getting captured had not been part of the plan, but things rarely go according to plan, as years of experience have taught him. But he’s gotten himself into and out of worse situations, and this is worth it. They don’t know that he doesn’t have the map, don’t know about BB-8, and he’s almost certain that the droid can find a way back to the Resistance.

Thinking about the slaughter at Tuanul makes him sick- so many dead already, and an entire village massacred for Ren’s mad grudge and a rumor of information. And Poe, alive and captured and refusing to say a word (he won’t betray General Organa, won’t betray the Resistance), even as he tries his best to formulate an escape plan out of fragments and blurred memories of the corridors he’d been dragged through to get here.

And then the door opens with a hiss of air, and he tenses with the expectation of pain, though none comes. Not yet. Instead, there are only footsteps, heavy with intent and the threat of violence, and a foreboding that curls in the pit of his stomach as he cranes his neck back, despite the bruises, despite the protesting jolt of pain.

He sees this: A figure, clad head to toe in black, sable fabric draped and twisted into a cowl over a mask scratched and worn, a single slit lined in dull silver and darkness where eyes should peer out of. The hilt of a lightsaber that he knows will burn and crackle red is tucked into a belt. Deactivated, for now. His stomach roils in protest, but fighting now is no good; he can only endure. And then, Kylo Ren speaks, voice deep and monotone, made so by the mask.

“Where is it?” There is more that he says, true, a banter back and forth that Poe is glad to indulge in, let it distract him from the pain to come. Let him seem brave, at least, even though he knows that when it hits, he’ll scream. But this cuts to the point, direct as metal between his ribs, and a phantom pain bursts in his chest. It’s an order, made by a man who has never been denied once, and his mind shifts to those old holos, the Imperial propaganda he’d seen once. Another figure clad in black and masked, standing above the rest.

 _Vader_ , he thinks, only it twists around and comes out as _Heracles_. A strange name, for a man blinded by his own rage, his own power, his own fear, that he slaughtered his family. Heracles is a name that rings of greatness, echoing a chord of remembrance in him. He cannot say how he has heard of the name before, only that he knows it. And knows that it is the name of a hero.

Vader, though, is the harbinger of death. A corrupter, twisting the boy he’d known as Ben Solo into the monster that is Kylo Ren and making the monster thank him for it.

Poe holds out as best he can, is silent as long as possible forcing a bravado he doesn’t feel, because when he is facing death, what more can he do but square his shoulders and push forward? He knows he will die; he would do so a thousand times over before he gives Ren what he wants, he’d die before he betrays the Resistance-

_No!_

The thought wells up from deep within him, and it is not the visceral pull for survival; this is a desperation like Poe has never tasted before, shocking him even through the slick slip of warm blood down his face, through the beats of his heart pounding out ‘die, die, die’. Martyrdom is better than betraying a cause he believes in with everything he is; better than betraying General Organa, with everything she has done for him, but-

He cannot die here, _give him what he wants, just do it, there is something left for you, something more to live for, I will not die without seeing him again, I will not-_

And then Ren is in his mind, and he _screams_ ; he cannot breathe, cannot do anything but curl around the information he so wants to protect, fling up walls and walls and walls because he isn’t ready for those cold-cruel fingers digging into his head. He isn’t ready for the vicious scrutiny as Ren ransacks his thoughts, going deeper, deeper, deeper; but this is nothing to the agony of a spear punching through him, a fall from a towering wall, plucked off by the hands of a god and discarded like the mortal trash he is, it is nothing to the pain of non-being, the torment of an unremembered wraith-like existence.

Shock that is not his own reverberates through Poe like an earthquake, he can _feel_ Ren flinch in confusion at the memories he’s dredged up, impossible things on a planet he’s never even heard of. But he continues on, drills deep into the core of him and there is so much _pain_ now, his heart beating faster than ever before, racing to its own doom _such a fragile thing, the human body_ , he thinks almost incoherently, with a savage satisfaction.

And the memory rises up, unbidden, with Poe fighting it every step of the way, but how can you fend off an enemy that is within you? He was meant to die here, to become a hero, he would be worthy and glorious all for the sake of saving the precious last bit of hope they had. But some things, a memory shaken loose tells him, are worth living for.

 _No!_ He wants to shout back because he has betrayed himself, betrayed the Resistance, when whatever hidden, hungry part of him gave up BB-8 to Ren’s claws. Ren, a grasping, clawing taint at the back of his mind. His violent and jagged triumph bleeding loose as Poe’s head slams down onto the icy metal of the chair, memories shaken free and floating like a thousand feathers through his mind…

_He’s skipping rocks on a nostalgic beach, placid and peaceful, loved and lonely, and then his father is holding him close, pressing bacta over a cut oozing blood after he slammed into a cast-off wing of a ship; dice stained red with blood, a boy’s head caved in and trickling crimson on the dusty ground, and a mounting feeling of horror and countless sleepless nights._

_He sees his first flight, riding along in the co-pilot’s seat and not allowed to touch any of the switches and buttons that flicker; a scream of joy torn from his throat as his mother flips the ship upside down, brings them close to the ground, and never does he fear crashing for he knows that she will keep him safe,_

_A golden prince, so obviously more than mortal, divinity shining through the mortality of his body, he is said to be dipped in the River Styx, gifted with invulnerability but for one weak spot, juggling figs in a blurred ring in the air with clever, flickering hands,_

_There is Ben Solo, he’s meeting him for the first time and he is almost painfully shy; pale with too-big features and a too-big legacy to fill, but then he was all talk about flying, flying, flying and look, Poe, I can move this without touching it (it isn’t until years later that Poe hears the news and thinks that Ben Solo never truly had a chance, in the end, with the weight of such expectation)-_

_a creature that is half man, half horse, and shows him kindness like no other, a teacher who does not require him to fight, to be strong, only willing to learn, who teaches him of nature and of healing and of survival in a way that his people have long forgotten; a teacher who protects him, from the iced hatred of a mother not his own-_

_Han Solo letting him and Ben fly the Falcon, just once, before Ben goes to train, to learn, and it is exhilarating, so much more than he could have ever have dreamed, this speed, even if Ben whispers to him ‘goodbye’, only it comes out as ‘I don’t want to go, not really’-_

_war, calling for his prince, calling for him, glory beckoning; this is what the other is made for, to be worshipped and praised, Aristos Achaion, they call the prince, not wrongly, but he is only Patroclus, another word for weak, for disappointment, and he is no soldier, but he will go-_

_Jedi, slaughtered by one of their own, and Luke Skywalker exiling himself in shame and grief; the entire galaxy in mourning, in hatred, for the First Order has shown its true colors, has declared war in a message crafted from betrayal and the blood of children, and Poe knows then that he will fight (it is not until much later that he finds out the Kylo Ren that murdered them was, in fact, Ben Solo, but he does not cry, does not grieve, when he does, for to do so will break him)-_

_a girl, innocent, lovely and loved, and a knife dragged across her throat; blood splashing against a wedding tunic and the shocked green of his eyes even as the wind begins to blow for the first time in months; hope, bartered for with despair-_

_years and Princess Organa becomes a General, and Poe signs up under her Resistance immediately, because he will fight for the good in the galaxy, for freedom, just as his parents did-_

_years, and they know they’re living on bought time, though another girl has joined their orbit, protected now but with a core of a molten star, the war drags on-_

_the war drags on, missions become more dangerous, he loses friends who had quickly become family, the cost of the fight is almost too much to bear but he will keep going, a good soldier that tells himself it, still, is worth it-_

_losses and losses and losses, there is so much death it chokes the gates of the underworld, all because of the hubris of a prince promised glory, who will not yield to save the lives of the men who will raise him up to greatness-_

_the ace pilot of the Resistance, wanted dead or alive, sent to retrieve a map to Luke Skywalker, to bring him back, the galaxy’s last hope-_

_he gives them hope at the cost of his life, at the cost of his very being; armor, donned carefully for it is too loose, a spear, one he cannot heft alone, but here he is blessed by Ares himself on this last day of his life, this boy who could never be a soldier; hope, he gives them, in the form of another’s wrath, even pain explodes in his stomach, as he falls, life already leaving him-_

_it hurtshurtshurts-_

**_Achilles_ ** _-_

“We’re done here,” Ren’s voice rips him out of his head, reeling, grasping for something, anything, of reality. It has only been a few seconds, he’s sure, but Poe’s disoriented and confused with thousands of years ripped free and a whirlwind in his head.

Poe can only gasp, helpless, as the Stormtroopers file out, mechanical. _Who am I, who am I, who am I?_

Kylo Ren leaves in a whirl of black, the door hissing shut behind him. And Poe is left in the empty room with his head spinning and his sight blurry, lost in memories that only half belong to him.

He’s almost certain that not much time has elapsed when the door hisses open once more, and another modulated voice announces that Lord Ren wants the prisoner. Poe holds in a ragged groan; what more could Kylo Ren want from him? What more could he take that he hasn’t already? But then the restraints are undone and he’s being marched out of the room, the cold point of a blaster against the middle of his back, and he’s every bit the prisoner, still disoriented and bleeding and only half-able to walk. But he’s still Poe Dameron, and he knows that he has to at least make things right- find BB-8 before the Order does, undo the damage done when Ren ripped the memory from his mind.

(He knows that General Organa wouldn’t blame him, knows that it isn’t his fault for not being able to hold out; what mortal person can, against the Force?)

And then the Stormtrooper pushes him into a small, cramped corridor to the side, removes his mask, and announces that this is a rescue. Poe blinks, dazed, as he looks at his would-be-rescuer’s face. It’s jarring, for a reason he can’t describe.

( _his hair is longer, blonde, full lips and nimble fingers that could carve open a chest and play a lyre beautifully, eyes like spring_ )

And an instant sort of kinship, a flare of recognition from ( _me_ ) some part of him, tucked away deep but now shaken loose and scattered by Ren.

“I can fly anything,” he assures the Stormtrooper, a hint of his cockiest grin on his face, but there’s not a hint of boast in his statement. It’s simply the truth. And if this soldier is disillusioned, wants to leave, too? Well, he can certainly help with that, be the pilot he needs to get them both out of here. But there’s something in the way that the other man says it’s the right thing to do, helping him, that strikes a chord in Poe. That makes him look a little closer, and

( _I don’t understand, he was never concerned about what was right, not even at the end_ )

He shakes it off- it’s dangerous to linger like this, and they exchange another glance, before the helmet goes back on and Poe is left feeling bereft, somehow, after that moment of camaraderie. But then he’s being directed towards the nearest hangar, with not a single person batting an eye at the sight, and they slip into a TIE fighter, unnoticed.

Of course, all hopes of a stealthy escape are shattered when it turns out the blasted thing is tethered to the ship, but when they finally break loose and shoot off into the star-studded darkness, Poe lets out a whoop of sheer joy. This is where he _belongs_ , in the cockpit and untethered from gravity, even if the controls take a moment to figure out. It’s pure chaos, once the ship starts firing at them, and he pulls out all the stops with dizzying manoeuvres to evade them. And when the trooper starts firing, a few shots going wide, but then they start to hit perfectly, a brilliant sort of synergy and an unshakeable feeling of rightness? It’s like nothing he’s ever experienced before.

He calls out after a particularly tricky move, possessed by the sudden urge to know the man’s name, ready for familiar syllables to reach his ears, but is instead greeted with two letters and four numbers and the harsh reality of the Order’s Stormtrooper program. Rage rises within him; they took everything from these people, reformed them from people into expendable weapons and made sure they’d never want anything more.

And he gives him a name, in that heat of battle, and it feels like a moment that was meant to be.

“Finn,” the other repeats, with something like awe in his voice, even as somewhere inside Poe there’s a frustrated snarl of anguish, even as the conversation shifts into something that’s more like an argument; he can’t leave BB-8, can’t let the Order win, even if Finn seems to think that it means death. After all, Poe has faced worse odds before, and in this fighter with that man by his side, having just escaped what was certain doom? He feels invincible.

( _not his name, no, you know his name you know what he should be, this is all wrong, he wouldn’t run wouldn’t be just another soldier why is it like this_ )

But even as they fly, as they fight, a lucky hit lands and euphoria turns to horror as they spin and the controls flicker and red text appears everywhere.

Like Icarus, they fall.

!~!~!~!

FN-2187 stares at the wreckage of the TIE fighter, mangled beyond recognition and already sinking beneath the sands of Jakku (not this place again, he still has blood on his uniform, still sees the flames in the night and hears the screams and blaster-bolt fire and the hissing crackle of Lord Ren’s lightsaber).

The jacket is worn leather, and as he clutches it in his hands, he _feels_. An inexplicable sense of loss, for a man he’d just met ( _bonds forged in danger are the brightest, a man will bleed for you if you bleed for him, if you are on the front lines you can inspire them_ ). No, not just a man. Poe. Poe Dameron, ace pilot of the Resistance, now dead and _what has he gotten himself into_.

FN- no, Finn, he’s Finn now. He’s not part of the First Order anymore, and if fleeing them in a TIE fighter with a known Resistance pilot wasn’t enough of a declaration of selfhood ( _oh kriff what has he done_ ), a name certainly is. A name that feels like what he thinks comfort should be, a gift freely given. Finn is born again in the scorching sands of Jakku, forged from the exhilarating bewilderment of freedom and the sharp sense of loss, grief for someone he barely knows.

( _No no nonono it can’t be him, where is he really, what did he_ do _why did he have to die first-_ )

He squints up at the blazing, unforgiving sun, chooses the direction that he thinks Niima Outpost should be, and begins to walk. The Order will be landing on the planet soon, probably already on their way here; there’s no time for mourning now, foreign concept though it may be, no time to collapse into the sands like he wants to and try to take in the sheer magnitude of his actions. He sheds pieces of white armor as he goes, the white plates gleaming in the shifting sands. They’ll be gone soon, either taken by scavengers or buried by the winds, and he’s soon left to sweat through his undersuit, which absorbs the sun’s rays like it’s deciding to punish him for such treason.

He puts Poe’s jacket on over his head as a meagre form of shelter, the best he can manage, for there is no shade for miles here. Finn tries not to think about water, or the constant chill that permeated the rooms in the Academy- hated, then, but he’d welcome that seeping cold now if it meant a moment of relief from this kriffing heat.

Several hours of trekking through the desert later, Finn has concluded two things: This planet is hell and he despises it. He’s since made it to the outpost, despite the nearly four hours of walking that it took, and although Finn is in peak physical shape like the other Stormtroopers, Jakku is an unforgiving wasteland. It twists his gut, thinking about anyone living here; it’s a hard planet, for hard people, and the sands wear everything down until there’s nothing left.

Sprawled out in a scant half-meter of shade, he’d nearly dunked his head into the stinking water (it was a close thing, then he sees Rey being attacked, and he _goes_.

And then she attacks him.

After that, it’s just running- more running, and a lie that sticks in his throat every time he has to do something to confirm it. There’s a brief interlude with _the_ Han Solo, who gives him a knowing look and a murmured word of advice that settles with something hot like shame in his cheeks, but he looks at her, sees her face light up even as an Wookie three times his size and weight howls in his ear and nearly takes his head off on four separate occasions, and he knows that he can’t bear to tell her the truth. But it’s the right thing to do.

“I’m not a hero,” he says, and the words are bitter ash in his mouth. He feels smaller for his confession, for the way she looks at him, shock turning to anger. Part of him despises the thought of being a coward, but is it still cowardice when it’s born of truth? He’s _seen_ the First Order, and he knows, more than anyone else, what it’s capable of. The Resistance is futile, and running is the only option. Far as the Outer Rim, and then further, where he can disappear and be safe. It stings, that Rey doesn’t want to come with him, that she’s stubborn and noble. That he’s going to lose the second friend that he’s made, the second time he’d felt that flicker of recognition and the sense of instant connection that came with it. But the betrayal evident in her face is clear enough as she turns and stalks away, leaving him there to stare after her.

The buzz of the cantina swallows the silence in her wake. He doesn’t follow her, doesn’t think she will listen, or understand. For Rey, survival is something to be fought for and earned, not something you flee to gain.

They’re standing outside, when he feels it. Rey is still nowhere to be found, nor BB-8, and Finn is near frantic to see them again, part on better terms. He knows he cannot convince her to leave ( _rightfully so you coward how dare you how_ dare _you try and flee, this war is your calling, it is where you belong_ ).

And he’s looking up at the sky because there’s this beam of light, and he _knows_. He can only watch it travel, and then there’s this pain lancing through his chest- he _feels them dying, oh gods they’re all dying, so many_

( _a massacre, such power_ )

He can’t breathe around the despair that shears through the air, lodging in his chest like a spear. So much life lost, and so easily. The death tastes like ash on his tongue, his stomach roils with nausea. He wonders if Rey can feel it, too.

Then he hears it- the hum of far-off engines that can only be one thing, and he’s stumbling through the sickness and sorrow because they’re coming, no they’re _here already_ and he was right. Just like he told Rey, there’s no escape from the First Order anywhere in the galaxy, there’s no way to stop them. But as blaster fire starts to rain down bright red and deadly, cratering the soil as screams start to rise into the air, and as he runs to try and dodge them, get back to that ship that’s his ticket to freedom, he thinks that maybe, maybe, this isn’t the right thing to do.

( _just look at that, like a god’s wrath incarnate, there should be stormclouds to herald this and seas rising with fury_ )

The first of the ‘Troopers start to emerge from the treeline, a white as bone against the lush verdance of Takodana’s thick forest, and all armed as they advance in a line. Unstoppable. He hears a roar, the sizzle of flesh as bodies start to stream out of the cantina and fall. He sees Han Solo and Chewbacca rallying those who fight- more a general than he’d like to admit- and he thinks, _where’s Rey?_ Not here. She’s not. He doesn’t know whether or not he should be pleased about that, but there’s no time to decide.

He grips the smooth metal cylinder, one he’d been granted for safekeping, and a thrum of power runs through him. He can feel it buzzing beneath his skin, as Han Solo and Chewbacca start fighting, as bodies stream out of the cantina only to fall under blaster fire. So much death in this place. On this day.

He thumbs the lightsaber on, and meets the swing of someone who was once his friend. It cuts through all three layers of the armor and the body underneath with sickening ease. Something in him relishes the ease of this kill, says it’s no different from killing animal, except for the screaming. The acrid scent of burnt flesh and death stings the inside of his nose, and he thinks, abruptly, that he’s going to be sick, even with adrenaline burning through his veins and the shouts of the dying and the whizz of blaster fire through the air.

He barely manages to block the blow of a familiar weapon when it comes. Nameless and faceless, but he knows the voice that shouts at him through the helmet and its modulators, just as he knows that weapon and the devastating power behind it. FN-2199. It was bad when it was a ‘Trooper he didn’t know, but this is his squadmate, someone he’s been conditioned to fight with, if not trust. Someone who he’d share the occasional laugh with, or good-natured griping at the latest in the series of tests designed to weed out the weak. He _knows_ him, this is his friend.

 

It doesn’t stop Nines from trying to kill him. And proficient with a weapon like he is, Finn knows that he doesn’t stand a chance with this ancient lightsaber that he doesn’t know how to use. When a shot hits Nine square in the chest, sending him down, Finn doesn’t feel anything but regret.

Traitor, they call him. But Finn knows better. He’d gotten away before, and he’ll do it again- he will fight and die before they drag him back into this hell. And he does. He does, even when he and Han Solo and Chewbacca ( _somehow_ ) are captured. Even when they’re being marched towards a shuttle and a fate worse than death, he tells himself that he can get away again. He has to. He’s already trying for plans, desperately wanting one that’s actually reasonable, when-

Bolts of light start to rain down from the sky, kicking up craters and sending dirt flying up. It’s a distraction he uses to fight his way free, kicking against hard armor and trying to leverage himself away. They let go almost instantly, prisoners less important than handling what has to be Resistance backup.

An X-wing swoops dangerously low to the ground before hiking back up in a near vertical climb and twist to neatly evade oncoming fire, and then return it. A shuttle explodes with a noise that hurts his ears and a rain of shrapnel, and Finn lets out an ecstatic whoop. They’re safe. Maybe the Resistance really can protect him, if he were to go. Maybe they can hold out against the First Order.

He almost doesn’t notice the dark shuttle that rises from the planet, with it going a presence that’s like a bleeding wound. But he doesn’t think about it, not until the Stormtroopers have retreated and the ‘saber no longer burns in his hands. Not until he looks, still clinging on to hope, and doesn’t find her. Only BB-8, and the entire story that comes spilling out, translated by an ancient smuggler who’s too worn for this time.

To Rey, he wants to say, wants the other man to agree almost instantly. And he does. But first, to the Resistance.

(To Poe Dameron, who’s proved to be alive and well and makes Finn’s heart twist in ways it shouldn’t, who makes something in him uncurl and stretch like a cat awakening next to a flame. Who vouches for him, a nameless nobody who’d done nothing but try and run away.)

!~!~!~!

To Starkiller, which hangs stark white against the backdrop of its distant targets, a planet repurposed and twisted. A sun blazing nearby, waiting to be extinguished.

Their landing- isn’t smooth. Finn is somehow entirely unsurprised at this. But he can’t bring himself to care about that; they’ll be able to get off the planet before it blows, and that’s the important part. Han has the charges, Finn has a vague idea of where everything is. He’s not here for them, though, and he’s not here for the Resistance. He’s here for Rey.

They find Phasma first, though. And Finn would be lying if he didn’t find a whole lot of satisfaction in cramming her into a garbage chute and making her release the shields. He’s antsy the whole time, though, knowing that every second that passes is another terrible thing that could be happening to Rey. He nearly asks Phasma where she’s being kept, but it was Ren that took her. She could be anywhere on base, but if he’s lucky, there will be a literal smoking trail left to where she is.

They run into her before all that, and he can see the proud smile on Han Solo’s face, but all he feels is a gut-wrenching relief. She looks unscathed, and as the base begins to shake when the Resistance fliers start their attack, Finn grabs her by the hand and they run. But not to the Falcon.

The oscillators need to be taken down, because the ship can’t do it themselves. Not when they’re fighting and dying up there with the TIE counterattack. One look at Rey tells him that he can’t make the mistake of trying to run this time; she’s grimly determined as she takes the charges, as they split up to install them. Finn’s hands shake as he does his part, from adrenaline or fear, he isn’t sure.

They finish quickly, speed fuelled by desperation, but when Finn meets Chewbacca and Rey, they’re all frozen at the sight below them. Ren, standing on the bridge with his mask off- and his features are strangely soft, conflicted, an expressive mouth and a too-big nose and burning dark eyes, all of which makes Finn understand why he wears the mask. Without it, he looks disgustingly human. He doesn’t look like the monster he really is, without it on.

He can see how Rey’s fingers curl tight against her blaster, read the tension that stands out in her shoulders as Han Solo calls that monster his son, asks him to come _home_ and promises forgiveness. He can’t understand it, and neither can she. How could someone have a family like that and leave them? How could _Kylo Ren_ and everything he’s done deserve a family, while neither of them got one? The unfairness of it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, even as he wants to warn Han not to trust him, to get out of there while he still can- he’s Han Solo, and they’re here as backup for when the Troopers fire.

But Han does, and Finn feel something split and sink in his chest as he steps too close, reaches a hand out to take Ren’s lightsaber.

He hears Rey’s anguished scream, Chewbacca’s enraged yowl, as if through water. All he can see is that burning blade ignite, and slide through Han’s chest. A hand lifted, in an absolution undeserved, as the body topples off the side of the bridge and plummets into the darkness below. He doesn’t feel this death like he did on Takodana. Instead, he lifts his blaster with a curious disconnect, and opens fire. Just like Rey and Chewbacca. There’s a vindictive sense of satisfaction when he sees the Wookie’s bolt connect solidly with Ren, but Finn is focusing on the Troopers. One by one. It doesn’t matter if he knows them or not, now.

They will follow orders, and defying Ren has always, _always_ proved unpleasant, even if any of them were inclined to do that to begin with. And Finn? Finn is done running and hiding. He’s going to fight back, now. He’s going to survive this.

Rey nearly lands a hit on Ren, and Finn feels pride burn in his chest, but it shifts to anger, as Ren flicks his wrist, sends her flying into a tree. She lies still, and Finn swears his heart stops as he runs over to her. The lightsaber hilt gleams in the snow as he frantically feels for a pulse, praying to the gods that she’s still alive, that there is one- and there is, but faint. Concussed, at the very least.

The back of his neck prickles, as the crunching of snow under heavy boots gets louder. The crackling hum of Ren’s burning lightsaber, spitting sparks and vitriol at everyone, including its owner, is deafening.

His world narrows to two choices: leave the ‘saber, leave Rey, and run, save himself for he cannot stand against the leader of the Knights of Ren, the shadowy figure that haunts the First Order and wreaks destruction without measure on enemy and ally alike. Or. Take the lightsaber, ignite it. Fight, buy some time.

In the end, it isn’t much of a choice at all.

In the icy cold snows of Starkiller Base, where the trees rise like dark cracks against a grey sky, Finn picks up a weapon that belonged to a legend, and thumbs it on once again. It hums in his grasp, this contained power, and he shifts into what he hopes is a ready stance. His hands don’t shake, even when Ren advances on him, ominous and his front gleaming darkly with blood, that crackling red blade loud in the space between them.

( _I fought against a god and_ won _, this man is just a mortal and mortals die easily enough. He’s no Hector_ )

He can hear his heart thudding in the cage of his chest, feel every too-quick rasp of breath he takes in, knowing it could be his last. And when Ren swings, and he blocks that first blow with a shudder that shakes him to his bones, Finn is _mighty_.

Even when he stumbles, turns and nearly falls and scrambles to that weapon again, when he feels the searing burn and hears a scream rip itself from his throat as the darkness finally comes, and with it, peace.

!~!~!~!

**Interlude**

The scavenger and the pilot stand above a prone body, cleaned and made comfortable as possible in a small tank in the infirmary. Through the glass, he looks peaceful, though they both know exactly what it took to put him back together again.

“You’re leaving,” Poe finally speaks, flicking his eyes up to look at her. Rey looks startled at the address, still skittish around people. Around him, though he tries not to let the part of him that’s Patroclus be offended. After all, whoever she may be from a past life, this life has not treated her well.

“I need to. I have to find Luke, return his lightsaber to him. And I need to learn,” she replies, her voice soft. Almost as if she were trying not to disturb Finn, who lies in an artificial slumber so he can heal. Who will awaken, because he _has_ to. They can’t lose him again, not so soon after meeting for the first time. “When he wakes up-,”

“Aside from the med-droids and me, you’ll be the first to know,” he reassures her, instantly, and it’s telling how her shoulders slump with relief. She looks younger, now, stripped of the desert grime and the power that had mantled her on Starkiller, even as her thumb strokes along the smooth metal side of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.

“Thanks,” she nods, and offers a careful smile, like she’s not quite sure how to arrange it on her face. It’s instantly endearing, and he returns it with his own dazzling grin. She lingers a moment longer, her hand ghosting just above the glass covering Finn’s face, and then she’s gone.

And so, he waits, and Rey learns, and Finn sleeps.

!~!~!~!

**iv.**

The first thing he sees is the stark white of the ceiling, and it’s near blindingly bright. Time trickles by, uncertain and meandering like a lazy stream; he’s been haunted by half-dreams and wraiths, scenes he knows that he’s never seen before, armor gilt-golden and strange hoofed creatures thundering along a plain, a city with walls rising dizzyingly high and a man who stews in bitter resentment and greed. A woman, said to be beautiful above all others, stolen. A man, who he loves above all others, killed. Music dancing under his fingers as he plays a strange instrument, sits at the knee of a ruler, the heft of a slew of weapons in his grip and the burst of sweetness in his mouth from a foreign fruit.

Fever dreams, all of it- what else could it be?

And then memory comes rushing back in, and with it a bolt of sheer panic that has him attempting to sit upright, but all he manages is a sluggish half-rise, and that’s _worse_ , where is he, where’s Rey does the Order still have her did they not get off Starkiller on time-

Contempt stirs at that panic, deep within him, but his breath comes in shallow pants as he strains to look around, finds himself in a medbay of sorts, with droids now bustling about and a familiar round astromech rolling on over to him. He’s…safe?

“What happened?” are the first words out of his mouth, hoarse and barely more than a whisper.

The response is a series of rapid beeps, which proves to be remarkably unhelpful without anyone nearby to translate, though the little droid soon rolls out of the room entirely, leaving Finn at the tender mercies of the others. His head aches, fragments of memory slamming into his skull and ricocheting. He still can’t move properly, his back now an insistent throb along its entire length and gods, it’s wrong, it’s awful, what if he can’t ever, the Order is going to kill him, he feels the phantom pain of the lightsaber, crackling red and vengeful tearing him open all over again-

( _feels the arrow as it slides between his ribs and out of that pain blossoms a bone deep relief_ )

“Finn?”

He looks up, instantly, his breathing still fast and shallow and droids and machines beeping the sound drilling holes into his head, his vision blurred and his mouth dry and sour. “Poe?”

And that’s all it takes, with Poe rushing over to him almost instantly, nearly enveloping him in his arms, but for the slim droid that beeps angrily and says- well, Finn’s not sure he wants to know what it says, given how quick Poe backs off after that, a rueful look on his face. But he’s _here_ , and that means Finn’s safe.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” Poe answers, and a hand stretches out to grip his own, tight and unrelenting, his anchor. He can breathe just a little easier now, with this contact to ground him, even if his grip isn’t as tight as it should be, residual weakness clinging to his bones like it’d never done before.

“We- made it off? We’re okay?” he asks, halting as his voice comes out hoarse with disuse.

“We’re safe,” Poe repeats, giving his hand a squeeze. “You’re at the Resistance base in D’Qar, and definitely a Big Deal now, I can tell you that much.”

His cheeks burn at the reminder of that particular lie, one that he hadn’t known Rey’d told Poe. “I- thought that I’d be in trouble. Face execution, or something like that. For lying, first, and then for hijacking the mission to Starkiller Base to get Rey.”

Poe laughs, the sound bright like a sun and his face equally radiant. His eyes are soft, still crinkled at the corners, and a warmth blossoms in his chest, like muscles unknotting in the warmth of a sun. “Well, sure, but it all turned out alright in the end, didn’t it? So I’d say that’s what mattered the most. Plus, I think the General’s taken a bit of a shine to you, between the two of us.”

That’s a dizzying thought, on its own, but Finn’s saved from formulating a response by another series of beeps, this time directed at him. He turns, looking to Poe for a translation; his head still aches, and he’s not quite able to parse them into anything even remotely resembling coherence, just from the tone.

“Ah. This guy says that you’ll need to be weaned onto a diet of solid foods, and that they’re going to want to keep you here for a while longer. Observation and all that, make sure nothing goes horribly wrong. Your back’s going to have a scar, apparently, nothing they could do about that when you were out, but if you want to get rid of it, they can do that later on.” Here, he pauses, waiting for the next rapid set before continuing. “Uh, yeah. You’re going to need some physical therapy, too. Nothing too intensive, they say, apparently they kept up with little exercises while you were out, but you’re not gonna be in top form just yet.”

“You keep saying ‘while I was out’,” Finn interrupts with a frown, another flicker of panic ready to surge up. “How long has it been?”

“Nearly four months,” Poe says, reluctant, but his fingers shift to lace with Finn’s, a calloused thumb smoothing over his knuckles almost unconsciously. Four months. Four months of his life, gone like that, four months of his freedom. Who knows what could have happened since then, the Order could have regrouped already, could be on their way as they’re talking, and he’s sitting here useless and unhelpful and

( _languishing in a tent, stubborn as men fight and die and the clock of judgement swings against them, influenced by the power of beings greater than any mortal; sitting with restless men and guilty consciences, waiting to bring a king to his knees as his beloved bloodies his hands saving lives that don’t deserve it_ )

“Finn, breathe,” breaks through the reverie, and he does, automatic and trusting. “There we go. Look, I can promise you that nothing’s happened, and these things take time. As far as we know, the First Order is still cowering and trying to regroup. They’re still in power, sure, but they lost Starkiller and a helluva lot of manpower with it. It’s not a defeat they’re gonna come back from any time soon, and we’re just using this leeway to push as best we can.”

“Everything’s okay,” Finn tells himself, and there’s an inexplicable curl of contempt in him for needing that verbal reassurance in the first place, for using it to fool himself into believing that.

“For now, it is. And it will be,” Poe says, earnest. “You’ll have a bunch of visitors, now, but I’ll be here through all of that. The General’s going to stop by first, I think, she’ll want to debrief you.”

“And Rey?” he asks, emboldened. He’d missed her, after all, though it wasn’t entirely her fault that BB-8 had gone to Poe first.

“She left,” Poe answers, a little uncomfortably. Finn can feel the smile slide from his face, the betrayal and loss curling heavy in his chest. “Not because she didn’t want to be here when you woke up, I promise. She comms me every other day, just to see if you’re awake or not.” The man trips over his words a little in is haste to reassure, and it works a little, though there’s still that lingering sense of unease.

“She’s going to be back, soon?” he prompts, when Poe falls silent, and is greeted by that same uncomfortable look again, one which he’s quickly growing to dislike.

“Well. They put the map to Luke Skywalker back together, and she stayed for a week here, waiting for you. When we all thought that you’d be up and about almost immediately. But General Organa thought that she should go, and. Well, we all did. The sooner we find him, the better. She took the Falcon, with Chewie and R2, and she went.”

Finn remains silent- he knows, of course, that she had to. That finding Skywalker was what brought them together, and that it’s a step to fighting back against the Order and the Knights of Ren. But it still hurts.

( _she never quite manages to look him in the eye, that slave girl, but she becomes a sort of mother to the rest, always making time for Patroclus_ )

“She’ll come back, you know,” Poe adds, not like an afterthought, but like something he thought Finn had already known. A reminder. “We need Luke to come back, and Rey’s going to return with him. Even if it takes a while for them to complete whatever mystical Jedi training they’re going through out there.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he repeats, with more conviction than he feels, and manages a firm little nod. “She’ll be back. And, the next time she comms, I guess she’s going to get a surprise, huh?”

“Luke’ll have to tie her down to keep her on Ahch-To after she finds out, that much I’m sure of,” he grins, and squeezes Finn’s hand once more. “And even with that, there’s a real good chance she’ll manage to break out and come get you.”

“I did tell you she’d managed to get out of the interrogation room on her own, even before we found her, right?” he asks, shifting into a more upright position. It’s a small thing, but even that much movement is a reassurance. The droids whir and beep around him, though he’s hardly paying attention to them as they check the machines and issue instructions to one another. Or so he assumes. They could be cussing him out in Binary, for all he knows.

“I heard, yeah. Also heard that you picked up that lightsaber, in the forest,” Poe prompts, clearly curious. Finn glances down at his hands, one palm up and resting on his lap, calloused from weapon-practice but so unused to taking a life, to actual combat. The other safe, fingers entangled with Poe’s.

“I did,” he answers, slow and a little hesitant. He remembers how it felt like stepping outside his own body, picking up a weapon that felt right and unfamiliar, all at once. The hum of power in its hilt and the clear blue light that shone from it. He curls his fingers into a loose fist, the same grip he’d used then. He’d been mighty, with that in his hands, his doubts melting away and leaving only a steadfast resolve. “I got lucky, I guess. Until I wasn’t.”

“You lived out the dream of every kid born after the Battle of Endor, I can tell you that. Probably younglings from the Old Republic, too, since there were a lot more of the Jedi back then,” he muses.

“Yours too?” Finn asks, curious. He hasn’t gotten a chance to speak to Poe properly, despite that bone-deep understanding they seem to share, despite that instant connection, the immediate feeling of being known.

“Nah,” Poe shakes his head, the gesture a little rueful, a little self-deprecating. “Not mine. I knew where I belonged, and it wasn’t with a fancy lightshow of a weapon in my hand.”

“No? I can see it now, a little Poe Dameron running around with a stick, making the sound effects as he chases a droid around. I’m sure one of them, at least, would have loved that,” Finn teases, and he’s beyond pleased to elicit another laugh from the man, the sound warm and rich.

“I think Threepio had enough problems without me terrorizing him, too,” he jokes, and Finn huffs out a laugh at the memory, however brief, of meeting the fussy golden droid. “He’s still around the base, though I think he misses Artoo. The guy refuses to leave the General’s side, though, which is fair enough. They’ve been through a whole lot together.”

He doesn’t say that with Han Solo dead, Leia Organa needs all her friends close, her brother especially. But the sentiment lingers heavy in the silence that falls over them.

“I think I’ve gotta go,” Poe finally says after an increasingly shrill set of noises from one of the med-droids. Finn winces, his fingers tightening on the other’s hand on reflex, but he forces himself to let go. “Time to call Rey, and tell the General that you’re all clear for a little chat. Don’t look all scared about it, man, she’s not going to eat you alive or pull a Kylo Ren mind trick like whatever propaganda you were fed says. I wouldn’t go as far as to say she’s harmless, but she’s not going to hurt you. You’re one of us now, after all.”

The reassurance helps with the crackling anxiety, but not with the sense of loss as Poe offers one last smile, a burst of brightness, of human warmth in this stark-white and sterile room, before he vanishes through the doors. In that brief moment of solitude, Finn can swear that he sees a woman standing in the corner of the room, his face hidden by a curtain of dark, slick hair. A part of him yearns for her to step closer, to call his name. He can picture it, her hand outstretched to run long fingers through tousled curls as she leans down and promises a future brighter than anyone could have seen. She whispers his name, and he can feel her breath ghost against his ear, but what she says is lost in the hiss of a door opening.

And then, Leia Organa-Solo enters, and his stomach drops and does an interesting set of acrobatics. It’s almost as bad as the first time he’d met her. But Finn squares his shoulders as best he can, straightens his back in a posture beaten into him, and faces her. The woman in the corner is gone, dissipated like smoke, but he doesn’t think about that.

The general’s presence is intimidating as always, belied by her height and the grey in her hair, the wrinkles set into her skin by time and grief and loss, by watching everything she built crumble once more and everything she fought to defeat rise in its place. She walks as one firmly rooted to the earth, a mountain unbreakable and a font of hope to all.

( _Wise like Athena, war and wisdom and a favorite of the grey-eyed maiden, she has to be_ )

His spine straightens with remembered reverence for all of a moment, before tight, disused muscles refuse to hold the position any longer.  “General Organa,” he says by way of greeting, hesitant. He still remembers what they had been taught about her, Vader’s daughter. Rebel scum, resourceful and dangerous, an idealist whose drive and legacy inspired millions, even when she had nothing but her name. Now, with one Empire crumbled and a New Republic forged, she is no less formidable, despite the lines in her face, the greying of her hair. He nearly panics for a moment, when he thinks that he must tell her that her husband is dead. That her son was the one to shove the lightsaber into his chest. But that is months past, and the most he can offer his condolences, were she to accept them. There’s a silence before she speaks that seems brittle and sharp, and Finn takes a breath even though it makes the backs of his shoulders burn.

“Finn,” she greets him warmly, and a knot tied tight inside him begins to loosen.

!~!~!~!

**v.**

Poe isn’t amazed at how seamlessly Finn seems to slide into place at the Resistance. Glances that would normally be tinged with fear and distrust, given his background (and Poe would personally knock the teeth or equivalent parts out of anyone who even thought about hinting that Finn was still working for the First Order) are instead admiring and approving. Never mind the fact that he’s evidently capable of charming just about everyone, even if it seems to be entirely unintentional. Any of the earlier discomfort at being here, the lingering stares directed his way in the beginning; it’s all melted away now, and he bears the weight of the attention on shoulders that are used enough to it that it’s not a burden. Poe almost finds himself missing how Finn would subtly crowd closer, press their shoulders together to seek comfort. There is, after all, nothing for Finn to be nervous about now. He’s a hero, and he belongs here with them; perhaps this is why he always takes the time to stop and speak to anyone who glances his way, strike up a conversation. Perhaps it’s the fact that he has the ability to do so for the first time, to get to know those that are drawn into his orbit by curiosity or by dint of his charisma. Poe knows he’s far from the exception to that.

( _Achilles is like that. Men flock to him, to his greatness. Always wanting to be a part of something bigger than they are, something touched by the gods._ )

He’s a symbol, Poe knows. One showing that the First Order isn’t all powerful, that there are cracks within that can be taken and used. This, following the destruction of Starkiller, is more than enough for everyone on the base.

( _There’s something to be said for the retreat of an enemy, but this, I do not trust. Nor should you._ )

Poe has to agree with that. It’s comforting, that General Organa does, too. She’s debriefed Finn as much as she could, but they’re still at loss as to what to do next. A strange peace, the calm before the storm. Not precisely, anyway. There’s still missions, of course. There’s escorting ships and picking up cargo and meeting spies and informants to extract information. Stormtroopers still march on Core planets, and Snoke his Knights of Ren are still out there, hidden on either a ship or a lost world. Waiting. It’s too much to hope, after all, that the Supreme Leader himself had been on Starkiller. From what Finn had said, and what Rey had agreed with, before she’d gone, Starkiller had very much been Hux’s pet project. Military, rather than Force-oriented.

There’s a slight stirring, a sensation of grim amusement from that part of him that had been shaken loose. He’s gotten better at- well, not necessarily ignoring it; it doesn’t speak much, but always presses closer to his own awareness whenever Finn is in the room. But he’s gotten better at dealing with it.

( _Patroclus_ )

It has a name, too. Distinct syllables like rocks clacking against one another. It isn’t like a name he’s heard before, and nor is the one it whispers when Poe is well on his way to falling asleep, to dreams and whatever peace they might bring him. But that name ( _Achilles_ ) kindles a fierce recognition, and an image of Finn, not in his jacket, but on a battlefield like nothing he’s ever seen before, clad in gilt metal and with a strange wooden spear in his hand.

He doesn’t tell Finn, or anyone else, about this, of course. He’s still not entirely sure he has his head on straight, if it’s just a temporary side effect of what Ren had done to him, but he knows that it’s not enough to put him in danger. He knows that he’s the one in control.

And then Finn says that he’s going on a mission, courtesy of General Organa.

That sends the part of him that calls itself Patroclus into a roaring frenzy. Poe, admittedly, feels much the same. He doesn’t want Finn to go, not when he’s only just recovered. And certainly not when he hears that the mission itself involves recruitment. Of Stormtroopers.

( _He was always meant to be a general. A leader. He will inspire them, he will draw them to his greatness like moths to a flame. They will come, and they will fall. And others will come, too. Those who want to extinguish that flame. It will not happen. Swear it! It cannot happen- you must protect him. **We** must protect him._ )

Poe has to excuse himself, leave the room when he hears the news. The shouting in his head is deafening, a beat pounding at the inside of his skull. He finds an empty room, slides down against the wall, and forces himself to take breaths. Suck down lungfuls of air, until it stops. He’s not disagreeing, not at all- Finn is going to be in danger. The fact that he’s already been in danger and come out on top isn’t entirely reassuring- surely, he will not be fighting Kylo Ren again, won’t get his back torn open like that, leaving him comatose and so, so near death.

Poe never wants to see him like that again, still and cold on that bed as the droids work over him desperately to save what they can. And they did.

But this outpouring of anger and concern and admiration, it’s a whirlwind. It’s being caught in a solar storm, buffeted by the radiation wind and helpless to do nothing but pray the systems hold and that it ends soon. His own feelings towards Finn aside- because that is something else entirely, and not anything he can deal with at the moment, if ever-, the intensity of that part of him towards the Finn it calls Achilles is _terrifying_.

Poe’s never felt that strongly before. Not about the Resistance, which he thought and still believes is his true purpose here. Not about his parents, or even about flying and how much he adores that weightless feeling. He knows that Patroclus would give up any and everything if it meant that Finn would be safe. Even if Finn doesn’t know that part of him, doesn’t even know if he’s whoever Achilles is.

Finn finds him, after dinner. Poe didn’t go- he’s got a couple snacks laying around, even if it’s technically against regulations. General Organa has never been strict about that kind of thing, anyway. But Finn’s at his door, a small parcel of food in hand, rather obviously have just been snuck out of the mess hall. He can’t help the smile that quirks his mouth at the sight- the thing’s dripping slightly. Finn offers a shy smile in return, and holds it out.

Poe takes it gingerly, accepting the peace offering for what it is. He sets it on the little table in the corner of his room, and settles down in a chair. There’s one more, and he inclines his head towards it so Finn can stop hovering endearingly and awkwardly in the doorway, and do the same thing closer. And perhaps more comfortable, if he’s seated.

“Are you okay?” is what the other says first, and Poe avoids looking at him in favour of carefully fishing out the food from the bag. It’s a mess of color and mostly mashed, and the only thing that seems to be whole is the container of blue milk that Finn belatedly slides across the table. There’s even a spoon in there, the handle of which Poe has to lick clean before he can actually touch it.

When he looks up at Finn, he finds him staring, his mouth slightly open.

“I’m alright, now,” he answers, but not before licking his fingers clean, too. He’s pretty sure that some of this was not meant to be mixed together, but he’s grateful for the effort anyway. There’s a strange collision of sweet and sour in his mouth.

“You left pretty quickly there.”

“I did, yeah. Wasn’t feeling so hot.”

“You look okay, though.”

“Better now. Rest and some water helped. And the food,” he adds, shovelling a spoonful into his mouth for good measure. He doesn’t actually need to chew it much, so he swallows it as quickly as possible.

“That’s good to hear. Do you want me to go talk to a med-droid about getting you checked out?”

“Nah,” Poe waves it off, shaking his head slightly. “I think it was just- a one-time thing. But, your mission, right? Bad timing on my part to take ill.”

“Oh, yeah,” Finn brightens up immediately, even if he still looks a little dubious. Poe can’t really blame him- neither part of him is by any means a gifted liar. “I was talking to General Organa about what else I could do, since I’m pretty much healed up and cleared for active duty wherever she and everyone else sees fit. And we’d been talking about the details of the Stormtrooper training program before, when she debriefed me. So when she asked me where I thought I’d do the most good- what I wanted to do, well. It seemed like a good idea, you know. To go to a small-time base and start seeing about recruiting them. ‘Cause I know that I’m not the only one who didn’t like it. And- it’s not that they’re bad people, Poe.” Here, he leans forward, earnest. This, Poe suspects, is a point that Finn has been trying to make clear since he’s arrived and was well enough to talk.

“I don’t know,” he says, slowly. “I know that you’re different, obviously, but you said that you didn’t shoot on Jakku. And, well, it’s not like the others have ever held back their fire.”

“We’re usually punished, if we don’t at least _fire_ the blasters. I know that there’s a few actively stationed ones, who prefer to shoot and miss. Or at least for non-vital areas. Whoever they’re shooting at won’t get hurt too badly, and they won’t get punished for not putting up a fight.”

“And what about the ones that shoot to kill? The ones that we end up fighting against, more often than not?”

“Most of the ones like me work in the bases, I think. Sanitation, menial jobs. Where we don’t have to fight, but where we don’t get much credit for anything, either. It’s easy to be overlooked, that way, if your test scores weren’t that great to begin with. Anyone who ends up on the front where they’re gonna see fighting, see the Resistance. Or even anyone who ends up going along with the Knights of Ren. They’re the ones who tend to actually care about the Order. They’re rewarded, for what they do, and the conditioning’s taken really well in them.”

“So, you’d be trying to recruit more of the non-combatants. Guards and cooks and janitors, rather than soldiers.” Poe raises an eyebrow. This is more comforting than thinking about Finn flinging himself into the fray of a bunch of the First Order’s skilled fighters, but the thought of an army of _janitors_ has him stifling a snicker as a cough.

“Yeah, exactly. And they’ll spread the word, too,” Finn presses, eager now. Poe can see the way his eyes light up, hear that note of command in his voice. “And that way anyone who wants to leave will know that it’s _possible_. They’ll try, at least, if they’re brave. If they know that there’s somewhere they can go, a safe place waiting for them. That’s why most stay, you know. Even if they’re not happy. Even if a lowly sanitation worker wouldn’t be missed. There’s nowhere safe for them to go, and it’d only be a matter of time until the First Order found them. Even if they weren’t actively looking. Whoever left would still be a deserter. A traitor.”

He can see the way Finn’s brow furrows, the frown that tugs at the corners of his mouth. Poe can’t help the way he reaches over, rests a slightly sticky hand on one of Finn’s. Squeezes, in an offer of comfort, and a reminder that Finn is here, now, that he’s not alone.

“You know that it’s better that you left. And you know that you’re safe here- well, as safe as any of us,” he amends. “So what if you’re a traitor? The only thing you betrayed was the First Order- and every single thing it does hurts innocent people. If there was ever a cause that deserved betraying, that’d be it.”

“I guess so,” Finn says, nodding slowly to himself. Poe breaks into a grin, thumps him on the back. On the smooth leather of the replacement jacket to the one he’d been wearing on Starkiller.

“That’s the spirit. So,” he continues, not wanting the silence to linger, “what’s your plan for it? How do you think this is gonna go down?”

“Oh, uh. Well the Resistance has some pretty skilled slicers, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“And I know they’ve tried to get into the First Order ‘net and all that, but the Stormtroopers kind of have their own separate thing. With holos and things to read, except it’s all heavily monitored and entirely propaganda. Old documentaries about the Empire and how it saved the Galaxy from the Republic, that kind of thing. It’s not like it has all that much data there, though, which is why I don’t think anyone really bothered with it before. But if I could get them to go in and submit something that I wrote, or a holo of me talking, enough people would see it and save it before it got taken down, right? They’d know about it.”

“Definitely. You really think it’ll work? It seems kind of on the subtle side. Especially with what you said about leaving.”

“They might think it’s a fake, or a test of some kind. See who’s talking about it, who seems supportive. But if I actually do show up, make the point that I’m alive and well and the First Order hasn’t gotten to me yet, it’d make the entire thing a lot more convincing.”

“So, what, you’ve got a script and all that written out for you?”

“Kind of. General Organa seemed to think that it should come from the heart; she says it’d make it easier for them to want to leave. But the gold droid-,”

“Threepio,”

“Threepio,” Finn repeats, with a small grin, “did me the honor of sending an entire file of points that I should try to include.”

“He’s very thorough, to be sure, but I somehow doubt that a mortal lifespan would be enough to cover every single one he wants you to get done.”

“I had to convince him not to write out phonetic translations for me, too. He was ready to do it for Huttese, Shryiiwook, Binary- and I think I’d have noticed a Wookie or a Hutt trying to squeeze into armor.”

“Are the ‘Troopers just humans, then?”

“Pretty much, actually. Or humanoids. It’s safe to say that the entire clone thing has been disregarded, but they still want that kind of uniformity. Mentally speaking, anyway.”

“You don’t have to give me the details, if you don’t want to.”

“I know, but I think that I should.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. No offense to you guys, but the Resistance doesn’t really think of Stormtroopers as- people. And we are. They are, I guess,” he corrects himself, a wry twist to his lips. “It’s not alright, what they do to get us like this. And I’m not saying that I don’t understand why it is the Resistance thinks the way it does, because it’s not like there’s all that much individuality from the outside, and when they’re trying to stop you- or at least doing a passable impression of it, it’s not the most favourable of meetings.”

“It’s not like we think that they’re all evil, you know. But a high amount of Stormtroopers have tried and succeeded to kill us. And it’s not like they’re the _good_ guys. They work for the First Order, just like they worked for the Empire.”

“And that somehow makes us- them- less of a person? I’m not saying that they’re good. I’m not saying that they’re bad, either. But sometimes it’s just about keeping your head down and following orders, because disobeying means reconditioning. And sometimes they decide you’re not even worth that much.”

“But it’s not like they’re trying to escape.”

“Don’t you understand? There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere that’s not here. And we both know that the people here wouldn’t be half as welcoming if I’d come without BB-8 and Han, and before Starkiller. But I’m going to change things, for them. Because nobody else will.”

There’s nothing that Poe can say to argue with that. He knows what they think of Stormtroopers; more than that, he knows what he used to think of Stormtroopers, before Finn.

( _Strange_ , says Patroclus. _Do you not think of your opponents as humans? What did you think was behind those masks and under that armor?_ )

Poe can’t bring himself to come up with an answer to that increasingly outspoken part of him. It’s worse when the memories, come, flashes of a war unlike any other he’d even heard about. Organized fighting, battling over honor and pride instead of for freedom against tyranny. He can’t understand it, the respect they seemed to have for the warriors they faced. Shame burns in him, curling sickly in his stomach.

It would be easier to keep on thinking the way he did.

( _It would be wrong. Cowardly_.)

He can’t bring himself to do it.

So he takes a breath, and looks at Finn, and tries not to think about how any and every Stormtrooper he’s gunned down could have been him.

!~!~!~!

Finn can freely admit that he’s excited to be off D’Qar, to be finally _doing_ something again. To be doing something that will help all the other Stormtroopers who were like him, trapped and hating it but too terrified to leave. Or never given the opportunity to try.

He’s given a script for the video, despite General Organa’s protestations (Statura wants him to be prepared, wants this planned out to be successful), but the words feel wrong and false in his mouth, they sound hollow. The holo itself needs to be recorded four times, and with every playback, he shakes his head. It’s wrong.

On the fifth, he takes a deep breath, and goes off script entirely.

( _You were born to lead, born to change lives. Use this. They will follow you wherever you go, because this is who and what we are._ )

“I used to be FN-2187,” he says, loud and clear, his chin tipped up defiantly. He lets the contempt he has for that number show in a curl of his mouth. “You might have heard of me,” he adds, with a wry smile, ducking his head a moment in a gesture that he knows will read as shy. All he needs to do is pretend that the camera is no longer there, that he’s instead sitting in a room with his past self. With the Finn who wanted nothing but to leave, with the Finn that thought he could make a name for himself by doing well, with the Finn who wants to be a good soldier and who lead a squadron in training, only to choose sanitation when all was said and done. It’s easier to speak, after that. He can see General Organa hold out a hand to stop what’s sure to be an interruption.

“But I have a name, now. It’s Finn, by the way. And it’s a real name, not like the numbers, and not like what we call ourselves when they can’t hear us. Slip. Zeros. Nines. Eight-seven. Finn,” he repeats, and he can’t stop the smile that breaks out across his face, honest and open. “I didn’t think that I’d have one, for all I wanted it. Just like I didn’t think that I could actually _leave_ the First Order and get away with it. But I have- and I didn’t need to flee to the Outer Rim and past, didn’t need to stowaway on a cargo-ship going far, far away. I’m with the Resistance, now, and I know that you’ll think I’m a traitor. Believe me, I know. But is that you, or is that the First Order talking? Is that you, or the reconditioning they put you through every single time you think something that they don’t like? Is that you, or the things that they make you want, who they shape you to be?”

“Those two things aren’t the same, you know. I used to think they were. I used to want to be the best soldier that I could be for the Order, because of course everything they did was right- look at how much better things were, under the Empire. There’s nothing wrong with trying to bring that back, to make it so that it’ll never fall again, right?” Finn pauses, shakes his head derisively. “And then they put me out in the field, even when I didn’t want to go. I’d rather be cleaning up after a herd of wampas than have to do that- especially since it was with Ren. Kylo Ren, specifically, so you know just how bad that was.” He stops, offers a smile that’s more than a little conspiratorial, a little empathising. He doesn’t look at the General’s face- there are some wounds that are too fresh to poke at, but this is something he can use. Something he has to use.

“They’re wrong, though. The Knights of Ren. General Hux. Phasma. The Supreme Leader himself. The only reason none of us are really fighting back is because they tell us otherwise from before we’re too old to know any better. They don’t _want_ us to think, they don’t want us to see outside until they _know_ we bought into what they’ve told us. And this video is going to get taken down almost as soon as they know it’s there- because they don’t want you to know what I know, now. The real reason they won’t tell you anything, the real reason they’d do anything to keep you right where you are, right under the heel of their boot and thank them for it because this is where they told you that you belong. And that’s because they’re afraid.” He stops for a breath, lets this settle a moment. Lets a smile crawl across his face, giddy and relieved.

“I know- you’d think the First Order wouldn’t be afraid of anything,” he continues. “Fair enough. I used to think that. I used to think that we didn’t matter to them- and in a way, that’s true. They’ve got enough of us to replace anyone that dies, and we’re meant to just, forget about the ones that didn’t make it. Forget about the kids they steal from their homes, the kids that they make _sure_ will never have a family. But the truth is that they need us- there’s no army without any soldiers, and there’s no First Order without Stormtroopers to make sure people _listen_ to everything they say. And they know full well that there’s more of us than there are of them. That if we were to one day decide we were done following orders, and just walk out, there’d be almost nothing left. And that’s not even starting to think about what might happen if we just, fought back. Not that I’m asking you to, though. That’s dangerous at best, especially since we all know that some of the soldiers are- well, they’re gone. They’ve bought into everything they’ve been taught and they won’t question a single word of it, even if some part of them, deep down, is saying that this isn’t right. But for those of you that want a choice, that want to know what choosing is like, that want to listen to that voice but are too scared to try- here I am. I listened, and I ran, and I made it. And you can, too.”

He turns to look directly into the camera at that, the words welling up inside him like water from a spring. He knows that he doesn’t need to say any more, and his hands are shaking. He can feel sweat beading at his forehead- this is the most outright act of defiance yet, and the feeling that he’ll be dragged away for reconditioning, that a smooth voice will call his number and tell him where to go and who to be and what to do, lingers. He has to remind himself that he is safe here. That he is Finn, and that the Resistance doesn’t do that.

Finn flicks his eyes towards the General, and there is a hint of approval at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes are remote. Cold.

“That was good,” Statura says, in his warbling voice. “A little long, but-,”

“You can’t edit it,” Finn cuts in, and then presses his lips together, embarrassed. He shouldn’t have interrupted, he’s already on thin ice as it is, and just contradicting a commanding officer, it’s not done, it’s not allowed.

“I agree with Finn,” General Organa cuts in, her voice like steel. “It’s important that this resonate with as many Stormtroopers as it can, and to do that, it needs to be genuine. It has to be something that they can relate to, and every word of that was important. It has to be done as a whole, or not at all. Otherwise that empathy is gone, and it’s just another propaganda piece.”

It is, in the end, just another propaganda piece. But when Finn discusses final adjustments and an innocuous title that’ll give it as much time as possible on the ‘net, he feels a sense of purpose fluttering golden wings in his chest. An ember slowly burning back to life, steady and promising. This, perhaps, is not what he was made to do, but this is something that he _can_ do. This is him making a difference. It feels good.

(The fact that he’ll _be_ there, this time, to meet them? That’s even better.)

!~!~!~!

**vi.**

It’s nearly three months, before Rey comes back to D’Qar. He can’t help but feel a flash of resentment on Finn’s behalf- she should have been here sooner, shouldn’t she? Been here to see him wake up, like Poe was. But he cannot begrudge her that training, not when he knows that the Resistance needs as many Force users on its side as possible. Even just one would make a difference against Ren.

She lands the _Falcon_ with an admirable ease, the legendary, battered ship slotting neatly into the hangar along X-wings in varied states of repair and wear. Poe remembers asking a younger Han Solo if he’d really made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs (twelve, he’d answered, his mouth curling), and then promptly swearing that he would break that record. He wonders if he still could- if Chewbacca would let him make the attempt. If Rey would mind.

It is different when he sees her this time; she is no longer worn thin with confusion and grief and a concern that was pressed deep into both of their souls. Poe looks at her, and he doesn’t see the scavenger Finn described on their first meeting. There is some of that, in how lightly she steps, used to shifting desert sand, in how her eyes scan the room first, and he can practically see how she catalogues the ships (hopeless, reparable, good condition) and the people gathering in the room. That momentary tension that curls his muscles, makes her hand drift closer to her side. But there’s also a confidence to her that wasn’t there before; it straightens her spine and changes the set of her shoulders, her jaw.

( _Briseis_.)

The name comes unbidden to his mind, and Poe doesn’t understand the memories that follow it, flowing like water in a clear stream. A woman, captured as a slave. She is beautiful, she makes a home for all the others they had wanted to save. She loves him, and she has a core of strength beneath her softness, gleaming like a dagger she tries to drive through the heart of another conqueror, this one far less kind.

He doesn’t see very much of her in Rey, and he does not think that she remembers this, not like he does.

“How is he?” are the first words that tumble from her lips as she approaches him, and there is some gratification in that, in the sheer eagerness for information that pours off of her. She may not have been there when Finn was awake, but she clearly regrets it.

“He’s fine,” Poe reassures her. Behind her, Chewbacca ambles down the ramp, roars out a greeting of some kind to the room in general.

“He says hello,” Rey translates quickly, craning her neck to glance back at him. “And that he needs to talk to the General.”

Poe is content to leave that particular duty to someone who has more than a vague knowledge of Shryiiwook, and instead gestures for Rey to follow him.

“He woke up just under three months ago, but he’s only been on his feet for two, so to say. He’s been doing propaganda pieces, actually,” Poe starts to talk, fill her in as he leads her to Finn’s quarters. He has to stifle a laugh at the slight wrinkle to her nose.

“Is that really all that useful?” she asks, dubious. “The First Order has a strong grip on most of the Core worlds already, doesn’t it? And those who want to fight back are already finding ways of doing so. Or at least that’s what Chewbacca told me, on the flight to Ahch-To.”

“Well, yes. But this is targeted to the Stormtroopers themselves, actually. Finn knows that there’s others like him, who want to leave but were too afraid to, and he thinks that if he can show them that there’s a way out, they’ll take it. The General thinks that it will be a good idea to show the Stormtroopers that the Resistance is an option for them, and that it’s good for First Order supporters to maybe see just how bad it really is.”

“You’d think they’d notice all the murder,” she mutters under her breath, her fingers brushing against the blaster holster at her waist.

“You would, yeah. But the General’s reasoning is that they need a face and a name to really make it stick- and then here’s Finn, with both,” he shrugs. It’s a good story, at the very least.

“I guess it makes sense. Has it been working- if he’s been doing it for that long?” she asks, curious. “Though I guess it would depend on if the Stormtroopers that want to leave are actually going to be able to get out.”

“He thinks we should provide some form of transport for them, slice messages in to specific groups and bases, but,” here, Poe shrugs. “I don’t know, I think that’s dangerous. It could be intercepted easily.”

“And you don’t want to lose people because of it,” she finishes, her eyes narrowing in a way that makes him feel a twinge of guilt.

“I don’t want people to die because of information leaks, regardless of which side they were on,” he corrects her, frowning slightly.

( _Perhaps if you keep saying that, you will believe it_.)

Patroclus is not helping the situation, at all. But it’s true- even if some Stormtroopers die in a futile attempt to hijack the collection ship, it will mean less soldiers for the Order, right?

Rey simply hums in a way that tells him she doesn’t believe it, but is willing to let it go for now.

“I think I’ll need to visit the General at some point,” she starts again, changing the topic. It’s not skilful, but Poe is still grateful for it. “Not now, obviously. Chewie’s talking to her, and- you are taking me to see Finn, right?”

“Right,” he confirms, nodding slightly. “She’ll probably comm you, when she has some free time.”

“Oh. That makes things a lot easier, then. There’s a message from Master Luke, but I think Chewie’s going to pass that on as well, so there’s nothing that I really need to tell her other than a- debrief?” she pauses, looking to Poe for confirmation. It’s nearly endearing, and he does nod his agreement. “A debrief of my training.”

“How was it? Training with Luke Skywalker, I mean. To be a Jedi. It must feel like something out of a fairy tale.”

“The Jedi were just legends for me. I didn’t even know the Force existed, until Kylo Ren tried to dig around in my head with it,” she confesses. “Han Solo was famous to me because he was a smuggler, not a war hero. Not a general. He made the Kessel Run in fou- well, twelve- parsecs, you know?”

“I know. I told him when I was a kid that I’d be beating that record before he could blink,” Poe answers, a fond smile curving his lips.

“I thought the _Falcon_ was garbage when I first saw it. I mean- not even Unkar Plutt would touch it, which meant it was beyond worthless. I guess it’s a good thing that it looked that bad, since we never would’ve gotten off Jakku without it,” she muses, tipping her head back slightly.

“I never really understood how it managed to _do_ everything he put it through,” he says, huffing out a quiet laugh. “I mean, I know the hyperdrive is something else, but it can outrun _Imperial_ -class ships. That’s a whole lot of speed for a freighter.”

“Not to mention the fact that it’s patched together with luck and a prayer, for the most part,” she sighs, tapping her fingers lightly against her thigh. “I keep thinking that it’s going to break down in the middle of nowhere, almost literally. The time on Ahch-To probably didn’t help it either, but now that we’re here, Chewie and I are going to give it an entire overhaul. It needs it.”

“Let me know if you need a hand with that. And with the test flight afterwards,” he offers, and something in Patroclus uncoils at the quiet laugh that elicits.

( _She was a friend to me, in another life. She loved me, but I could not return it. Happiness for her is the least she deserves._ )

“I will, don’t worry. And perhaps you could let me fly an X-wing, sometime,” she says in return, her tone slightly teasing. But Poe has to pause and consider it- properly consider it. From what Finn had said, she was more than competent as a pilot, even for her first time flying the _Falcon_. And Chewbacca wouldn’t let her near the controls now, if he didn’t trust her.

“Where’d you learn to fly on Jakku, anyway?”

“I can take ships apart and put them back together. Figuring out how they worked and what buttons to press came naturally once I knew where everything was connected,” Rey explains after a moment. “It was important to know the schematics for anything that had landed, to see what was useful and what wasn’t.”

“But the ships with valuable things on Jakku- those were mostly Star Destroyers, remnants from the battle there,” Poe presses further, a slight frown on his face. It still doesn’t answer his question, and he wonders for a moment if the Force has something to do with it. But if that was the case, he’s sure he’d be a Jedi Grand Master by now.

“That’s true. But there’s smaller craft around, and traders occasionally land in for repairs. I never went off planet, but I knew how those worked, too. I used to hide out in an X-wing, when I was younger,” she says softly, and her eyes are far away. “Sometimes I would pretend that I was a pilot. This was before I found the AT-AT, and that was much better as a base. Safer, and bigger, too.”

“Well, if your time sleeping there wasn’t too traumatic, I actually wouldn’t mind teaching you how to fly one of these. Or- if you already know, I’ll show you how formations and all that work. We can always use good pilots,” he adds, and it’s gratifying to see the smile that brightens her face. “Luke Skywalker used to be one, too, I heard. No idea where he learned to fly on Tattooine, but he flew for the Resistance with R2-D2 in tow.”

“He mentioned it a few times, but- he doesn’t make it sound like the stories I’ve heard around base,” Rey admits as they turn left, drawing closer to Finn’s room. “He said that his father was the better pilot of the two of them, and that Han would have blown them both out of the water. He didn’t say much about you, but I don’t think you’re called the ace pilot of the Resistance for nothing.”

“Hey, if they build it, I can fly it,” he replies with a grin. “And he wouldn’t know me, I only met him twice, and I didn’t actually talk to him either of those time. I was definitely more enchanted by _the_ Han Solo and Leia Organa.”

“What were they like?” she asks, after a moment of hesitation. Poe pauses, presses his lips together. He doesn’t know much about them- they always bickered, but it was clear to anyone who looked that they were in love.

“They loved each other,” is what he settles on after a moment, but this isn’t what Rey is after, judging by her frown. “And- they loved their son.”

“She loves him still,” Rey says, quiet. “I don’t know why. I mean, I didn’t think that they were terrible parents, or that they hated each other, but if they were good. If they loved him so much. Why would he do what he did?”

“I don’t think you’re asking the right person,” Poe says, a little uncomfortably. He remembers the searing pain of Ren raking through his mind, the way the man’s presence had oozed malice like a miasma. “I don’t really care why he did it. All I know is that he ended the Jedi in the new generation, killing innocent children that were just there to learn, like he was. All I know is that he doesn’t deserve her love, and he didn’t deserve the second chance Han wanted to give him. And I know that the First Order wouldn’t be where it is now, without him there as an enforcer.”

“You’re right,” Rey says after a moment, nodding slightly. “He had everything, you know? And he threw it all away. I don’t understand why.”

“Me neither,” Poe answers, entirely honest. But he doesn’t believe Ren is worth the effort of attempting empathy, no matter how willing General Organa may have been to forgive him. No matter who he used to be, in another life.

( _Strange, how willing you are to condemn him, to not look to his past but rather to what he has done. And yet you live with your past in ways that he can never even hope to imagine._ )

The answer to that is simple, to Poe. His past is _his_ past, and it took place in a world he cannot even remember. He wouldn’t remember it, that other life, if it hadn’t been for Ren digging around in his head. No matter what Patroclus says, they are not the same person, not really. Just as Finn and Achilles are not. There is only a hum of assent to that, faint.

They’re quiet, as they finish the walk to Finn’s door. Rey looks to him, and he gestures to it. Her knock is three solid thumps, and then a hesitant call of his name. Poe has to suppress a smile- if Finn hadn’t wanted to answer it then, he certainly would now.

He’s proved right not ten seconds later, when the door’s yanked open. He can see the emotions flash across Finn’s face as he sees Rey: disbelief, astonishment, and then joy as his smile nearly splits his face open, and she flings her arms tight around him.

Poe ignores the feeling of being an outsider, of intruding on their moment as he excuses himself and slips away. The taste is still bitter on his tongue, even when he joins them later for dinner and watches them talk and laugh together.

!~!~!~!

 _Briseis_ , is what he thinks when he first sees Rey return from Ahch-To, with her quick-clever fingers, and steel in her eyes. Familiarity and an easy friendship stagger to a halt now that some memories have begun to trickle back. Now that he knows how completely he destroyed her. He had owned her, lifetimes ago. He had taken everything from her, he knows. Her father, her life, her joy. Patroclus.

She had loved him, and Achilles feels a flash of jealousy so at odds with the easy admiration, the awe, that Finn harbors for her. The shame comes soon after, ebbing and flowing like a tide, burning bitter in the pit of his stomach that is not his in the body that is not his, not truly.

It is always the same, when he sees how seamlessly Rey and Poe, Briseis and Patroclus, fit together. In this life, as in another. It does not surprise him that she would follow him, even here; it is more a surprise that she does not remember them, does not look into their eyes and see the souls they once were. The surprise is in how eager _he_ was to follow her, but the Fates have always had a cruel twist for humor.

He sees them in pieces: matching grins and their eyes wild with the thrill of flight, X-wings tracing brand new constellations against the stars in the sky; elbow deep in the guts of a ship, grease smeared on cheeks and hair mussed as they talk, argue about the best way to fix it; the way she floats things over to rest atop his dark curls, ever so carefully, like a crown or a halo; the way he teaches her new tricks and shortcuts for flight, and they both come back breathless and brilliant.

And he has to remind himself that Poe is not Patroclus, not truly and that he is not Achilles either. He is Finn too, and he came back for her. He saved her, where it was his flesh and blood, his seed that killed her before, and if that does not speak of redemption, then the word has no true meaning. He’s found it, here, in the warmth of both their eyes, the smiles that are his alone, the rocks and bits of greenery Rey will leave for him by his suite, the lessons in Binary Poe’s taking care to teach him so that he can talk properly with BB-8.

He has to remind himself that he was Rey’s friend, first. That the parts of him that have been shaken loose and rattle around against his skull like shrapnel in a falling ship aren’t entirely right. Because regardless of how much time she spends with Poe, she will always carve out time for Finn alone.

It’s strange, how they never manage to do very much with the three of them. It feels like a balancing act, more than anything else- he knows that Poe is sure to recognize her, but he thinks that if she were to recognize him, that if she knew who he had been and what he had done to her in that other world, she wouldn’t be his friend. Or perhaps she would. But Finn knows that the distinctions between himself and Achilles are often blurred, even if the differences in their memories is sharp as a blade.

They haven’t talked about Ren yet, but Finn isn’t sure it’s a topic that either of them wants to bring up. Not beyond gratitude at their survival, and the general concern that lurks with every day that passes with no news of the First Order. Instead, he tells her about his videos, about the few missions he’s gone on, and one he’s thinking of proposing to the General. She tells him about Ahch-To in return, skimming over the details of training (though there are numerous complaints about how many kriffing _stairs_ were on those cliffs). She focuses more on what Luke Skywalker was like, and Finn isn’t ashamed to say that he encourages her in this. He finds himself curious- both halves. One wants to know why such a teacher would sequester himself away, why he would simply let himself be broken like that. Achilles wants to know what else it is that this Skywalker can teach him, too. And Finn? Finn wants to know what he can do, what he’s like. Luke Skywalker is another name larger than life, a legend in flesh and blood. The man who toppled the Empire and by bringing Vader to his knees.

Finn has always been taught that the Jedi are dangerous and misguided, and although he knows otherwise now, he can’t help but wonder what he’s _really_ like. Rey doesn’t seem to mind the telling of it, anyway.

It’s not until she goes off on a mission of her own, and comes back four days later than expected, boasting a few shiny new patches of skin courtesy of bacta, that Finn realizes just how much time she had been devoting to him. He finds her in her room afterwards, the space cluttered with plant clippings and interesting rocks, and a small pile of dark green bread rolls stacked neatly in the corner of an obviously improvised table.

“Hey,” he says, and she jolts upright from her seat, a holopad clattering to the surface of the table as she cranes her neck to find him. He can see how her hand instinctively reaches for something that isn’t there.

“Sorry, I should’ve knocked,” Finn replies, heat rushing to his cheeks. It’s easy to forget how she used to live on Jakku, when she seems to slot in here so seamlessly.

“It’s fine,” she waves him off, and makes a vague gesture at the second chair in the room. He follows, and she doesn’t talk until he’s settled down as comfortably as he can get. Absently, he glances at the table, and raises his eyebrows when he sees three crystals, all around the length of his forefinger, sitting there. They seem to pulse with a certain energy, and he shivers slightly.

“What’re those for?”

( _They’re beautiful. I have never seen gems like that before. I do not think they’re normal stones, either; they look as if they are something the gods have touched._ )

“Well. Master Luke doesn’t technically know,” she starts off, and Finn huffs out a quiet laugh- it doesn’t matter if Luke Skywalker knows or approves, in some cases. Rey will do as she sees fit. “Don’t give me that look, this might actually be something serious. I need a weapon, because we both know that I’m going to face Kylo Ren again. Only this time, I won’t have a lightsaber.”

“I was thinking about how you’d get around that, yeah. I thought you might still keep Skywalker’s.” Finn knows that he wouldn’t have wanted to give it up; not with the way it had felt so right in his hand.

“It’s his. And I don’t want it,” she says, and it’s as easy as that. “Ren wants it, too, and I’m sure it’d really get under his skin if Master Luke had it.”

Finn lets out a laugh at that. “I thought Jedi weren’t allowed to be petty like that.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” she replies with a shrug, glancing down at the crystals loosely cupped in her hand. They tint her skin green.

“Still. You used the lightsaber. And it’s not like he was doing anything with it,” Finn prompts.

“Well, yes. But it’s not something that I’m _used_ to using, either. And you used it to. A lightsaber does not a Jedi make.” Here, Rey frowns and tucks the crystals carefully into a small pouch at her side. Something in Finn unknots, when they’re out of sight. “There’s a lot of forms and formal training, and stand this way but not that way and keep your back straight and what are you doing with your other hand, padawan?” Her voice slips into a lower register, slightly gravelled with age. Finn has never once heard what Luke Skywalker sounded like, but he would be willing to consider this an accurate impression.

“I remember your staff, yeah,” he says, nodding slightly. It hadn’t looked like much, because it wasn’t, but there was no denying how effective it’d been.

“Exactly. That’s what I actually do know how to use, and it’d be easier to learn with that, than a weapon that always leaves me feeling off-balance. And however I beat Ren in the forest- if it was the Force or the fact that maybe he didn’t want to kill me, I don’t know for sure if I can do it again.”

“Hang on- what do you mean, maybe he didn’t want to kill you?”

“I’m sure he’d have maimed me if he’d gotten the chance, don’t worry. But it sounded more like he wanted to teach me, or something. I don’t think he’d be very good at it, for one,” she adds, and Finn can appreciate the moment of levity, but the thought of Ren coveting her as a student is one that turns his stomach. He can’t picture Rey in the First Order, can’t see her locked away on a ship in the vast emptiness of space, with her surroundings cold and clinical. The thought alone sends a shudder through him.

“He’d be terrible,” is what he says instead. “The Knights of Ren are the only ones that can really stand to be with him for too long, and even they’re usually busy when he’s in one of his moods.”

“Who are they- the Knights?”

Finn shrugs. “Force users, some of them. I don’t think any ever had Jedi training like he did. None of the others have lightsabers. They only answer to Snoke, in the end. Only two, other than Ren, actually showed their faces semi-often, but that was on special occasions. Like, tests to become an officer and rise through the ranks. They were there for Phasma’s promotion, apparently.”

Rey looks a little dazed by this influx of new information.

“Are they all like him?”

“Thankfully not. If they were, the First Order would have gotten nothing done,” he says, entirely genuine. “Either that, or they all would have killed each other by now.”

He lapses into silence; the memory of a hooded figure standing behind Phasma during one of the simulations creeping into his mind. He remembers how it felt cold, numbing, like ice coating his tongue and a primal sort of fear sliding into his mind, paralysing him.

“How lucky for us,” Rey comments dryly, and it’s enough to draw him back out of it. “But- I’ve got to go through my forms for now. Practice makes perfect, after all.”

“And I think I’ll head out for a walk, actually,” he says after a moment’s consideration. It may not be the best idea to be alone with his thoughts for now, but he can comm Poe and see if the other’s free. It would be nice, to spend time with him.

Rey gives him a disturbingly knowing look and a wave, before she turns the next corner, back to the room allotted to her. Abrupt as ever. Finn lifts his own hand in a belated goodbye, before his feet take him to the hangar. Poe’s unlikely to be in his room now; he’s either just got done with a couple of drills, or maintenance.

It’s strange, how walking to Poe is beginning to feel like going home.

!~!~!~!

**vii.**

Force sensitive. The phrase jars through him, widening his eyes with shock, sending his stomach plummeting with despair.

“Finn,” she says, her eyes sparkling, mouth cracking into a brilliant smile, “I think you’re Force sensitive.”

A fool, he’d been a fool to think the price would be having his back torn open by Ren. No this was the true price, yet another distinction between them. Another place where he could not go for the world of the Jedi was not for mere mortals and Achilles-well, he had never truly been mortal, no matter his choices.

“I’m what?” Finn asks, shock bleeding into his dark face in the form of wide, wondrous eyes. But the curve of his lips as he contemplates the idea, hungry, ambitious, yearning, is all Achilles.

“Force sensitive,” Rey repeats, her eyes sparkling with joy and an unrestrained smile blossoming on her lips. She has never been less of Briseis than this moment, but never so much more than her either. Her gods granted her another life, yes. She had loved him then, and asked to share this life with him now. But they gave her more, blooded her with power to suit the steel in her spine, her soul, her eyes. She will reforge this world, revel in her own glory, and she will make those who would have subjugated her in another life, _bow_.

He can feel it, between the three of them. Something new for the Resistance. Something to fight with. Which is what he wanted, after all. It’s what’s needed.

“I can’t leave-,” Finn murmurs, his hand curling into a fist. He casts Poe a helpless glance. “I cannot leave for a distant planet while my men die as I try to master a power that is-,”

“Finn.” She cuts him off, but Patroclus is reeling, hearing those words over and over and over: _I cannot leave._ “Luke will come here. To D’Qar. You can stay, and learn.” Here, her eyes dart over to Poe, giving him a reassuring smile. The same way General Organa can read the mood in a room, can extend her presence to calm or to inspire.

A Force thing, Poe thinks to himself, barely suppressing the bitter twist to his lips. Damn the Force. Without it, there would be no Kylo Ren, no Supreme Leader Snoke. No Dark Side, nor Light, no more barriers or grasping hands ready to snatch away his beloved. Only ordinary people…and the horrors they can wreak, even without such power at their fingertips. Without it, he may not have found Achilles in this life.

“I…what if I can’t do it?” The part of him that is Patroclus scoffs at the words as if they are a joke. To Achilles, the insecurity is repellent. There is no if, no cannot. There is only _do_ , and he has never encountered a challenge which he could not face with his love by his side.

“You can,” Poe is quick to reassure, his own grin coming easy and automatic, a veneer of dimples and perfect teeth over his own turmoil. Patroclus curls in him, head in his hands, already poised for the mourning.

“You will,” Rey adds, earnest and oddly solemn, her voice timbred with a knowing that neither of them can touch. “I’ll help as needed, we can go through forms together. Learn, together.”

The last part is tacked on, almost shy, as she flicks her gaze between the two of them. Poe’s grin doesn’t falter, he’s better than that, but he gives her a miniscule nod as they both turn to Finn, waiting for his response.

“I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a Jedi like that,” he finally responds, a little halting. “Like the one Skywalker was rebuilding, before the First Order. Or like anything before the Empire.”

Poe has grown up on stories of those Jedi, of the slaughters and of their heroic deeds as warriors during the Clone Wars; _heroes_ , Patroclus murmurs, _why should he not be the same?_ But it is Rey who answers, voice firm though her words are uncertain, “I don’t know if either of us can be Jedi like that. They were brought there as children, according to Master Luke. And even his academy was mostly children, after gathering older Force sensitives who wanted to go. But we’re not like that, we’re learning late. And, well. We’d be different, either way.”

Poe frowns a little, as a brief shadow flits across her face, but it’s gone almost immediately after.

“The General will be happy to have her brother here,” he settles on saying, because this is a simple enough truth. “And we need more Force users on our side.”

The Resistance will be stronger for it, and that’s what he needs to focus on. It’s what he does focus on. They’ll be the spark that will light the fire, that will burn the First Order down. Burn it to ashes and nothingness, like it deserves, and build something new, something better, after the purge.

( _There must be pain, purging of the wound, before it can heal. I suppose it’s the same thing on a larger scale_.)

“It’s about time Master Luke faced her, anyway,” Rey says, her eyebrows furrowed. “He wasn’t what I thought he’d be, at all. When Ren turned to the Dark Side- it broke something in him, almost.” She shakes her hand, her fingers curling into fists as she tries to find the words. Poe knows these stories well enough; knows that the Jedi Master had vanished into the air, leaving only an obscure map to his location should he be needed. Poe doesn’t think that he would have returned, if he’d been given the choice. It’s the kind of thing he hesitates to call cowardice, and wouldn’t say aloud in front of anyone else.

“Will he teach me?” Finn asks, after a moment. Hesitant in a way that’s still jarring; part of him is still used to unshakeable confidence. “Since I used to, you know. Work for them.”

“If it matters to him, then he’s wrong,” Rey says, and Poe nods to second that opinion. There is no part of Finn that _isn’t_ worthy.

“Am I going to be able to do all the,” here, Finn pauses, waves his hand around, “that you can?”

( _That and more_.)

Patroclus is certain of it, in the easy, unshakeable confidence he has that Achilles can achieve anything. Poe thinks that Finn will work until he manages it, and in the end, it amounts to the same thing.

“Probably?” Rey shrugs, but there’s a note of teasing in her smile as she replicates the gesture. This time, a few small rocks rise out of the pouch at her side, circling her wrist once before landing in her outstretched palm, one by one. “It takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. And apparently there’s also a lot of things that are more specialized, beyond moving things. Like the mind trick I used.”

“It’d be useful to learn how to do that,” Finn says solemnly. He mimes waving his hand in front of the face of an invisible person, and says, “You shall give me another roll.”

Rey bursts out in a sharp peal of laughter, and Poe feels a smile tugging at his mouth. “What, you think that’ll work on Eng’lar? You naïve soul. Not even the General would be able to get another roll.”

“Or you can just pocket one without them looking,” Rey suggests. “Once all the eyes are looking away from the tray, anyway.”

“We’re not all as light-fingered as you,” Poe answers with a mournful sigh, but it feels like he’s going through the motions of a pleasant conversation. He manages to excuse himself, once he spots Jessika out of the corner of his eye, murmuring a quick goodbye as he dashes off. He doesn’t need to see Finn to know that he’s got a fond smile on his face; he hears the comment to Rey that Poe’s always busy, around base. Just like he hears the conversation switch back to Rey explaining what she knows of the Force.

He turns left, instead of right to follow Pava, and heads straight for his room.

Force sensitive.

Poe has never been one to begrudge his lot. He wasn’t one of the children that dreamed about being Force sensitive, or one who’d played at being a Jedi. Luke Skywalker wasn’t a hero because of his lightsaber, to Poe, but rather for his piloting skills. And he’d always hung onto Han Solo’s every word, when he got the opportunity to hear it.

He’s known what he wanted for a long time, what he was fighting for. And he’s also known that he doesn’t need the Force for it. The Jedi, no matter how much he might have wanted to believe otherwise, were _dead_. They were gone, and with them, any hope of Force users being around to combat the First Order. That’s just how it was, and Poe had said fine- he didn’t need them. People had become their own heroes; ordinary people, banding together for a cause bigger than all of them. That’s what the Resistance is about, and he has never had any reason to think that there was something missing.

Not before now.

Because now, there’s a degree of separation between Finn and himself that wasn’t there before. He knows what the Jedi are supposed to be, everyone does. No attachments, only the Force. It’s not a life that he would have chosen for himself, if he was Force sensitive. He knows it’s stupid, to hope that Finn would chose him over that. Especially since there’s not exactly a _reason_ for him to choose- he doesn’t know about Poe. About Patroclus.

( _He is Achilles. He will choose us. He always has_.)

But that’s not true- he dredges up the memory, to prove it. Achilles, storming off to speak to his mother, offering Briseis up to Agamemnon as a trap. Achilles, standing as men died in droves because he would not help them, would not forsake his pride. And then Patroclus, donning his armor and going to his death to save it.

( _I stood with him, even through that. I- he would choose us, choose me, again. If it came to that._ )

Poe isn’t so sure. The Force itself is sure to be irresistible to Finn- why wouldn’t it be? It’s a kriffing fairy tale in the making. No one, becomes someone, becomes a hero that can save the galaxy. It’s a path that he and Rey will end up taking together, Poe’s sure, and where does that leave him?

The Resistance needs Force users, he knows this, he still feels the phantom pain searing through his mind in the dead of night, feels unblocked blows from Stormtroopers carrying out the orders of their masters. Feels Kylo Ren shove into his mind, all anger and malice and a want to hurt. He wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone else, and if Rey was able to resist him- if _Finn_ can do the same thing? That’s good, isn’t it?

It doesn’t matter, if he is the one left out. He knows what’s needed.

!~!~!~!

Finn is nervous to meet Master Luke, but the part of him that calls himself Achilles is eager. Hungry for whatever knowledge he might offer, with the chance for besting him. For a challenge.

( _Skywalker_ , he thinks, increasingly vocal now. _It is the name of a man who would be a god. I remember that we used to dream of the sky. We had legends of a boy that flew too high, higher than he should have, and his wings were wax and melted. He fell to his death._ )

Finn now has several memories of highly morbid legends that he’s not too sure what to do with, other than add them to the nightmare fodder. Each of them comes with the impression of sitting with an old man, whose lined face shines with wisdom and experience, a king who is kind. A hand resting on his shoulder, a smile for him and a scrawny boy who sits at his feet, eyes wide as he listens to the stories. Finn remembers touching him and wanting to touch him more than the playful nudges of ankles and the occasional playful wrestling they indulged in.

He shakes his head to clear the thoughts, though, when Rey walks into the room. She’s got a bag slung over her shoulder, and he’s almost certain that in it are a variety of rolls secreted away from breakfast (not seconds, she insisted the first time he’d seen them, but they’d been from the firsts she’d took), and things she keeps picking up around the base, around the planet.

She wakes up early, Finn knows, almost just before the first fingers of dawn begin to steal across the sky. He thought that it was on Skywalker’s request, first, but Rey traipsing into the mess for breakfast, her hair damp and threaded through with flowers, stones clicking together in her bag, and her boots wet and caked with mud, had quickly disabused him of that notion. She invited him to go on an exploration with her, once, but Finn had found that the thick vegetation and damp chill of the morning air wasn’t for him. That, and he couldn’t keep up with the way she seemed to dart from place to place, always looking for something different, something new, her eyes wide with wonder. He’d simply told her that he preferred the walks around the perimeter, or even into the forest, that Poe would take him on in the evenings.

She’d just raised her eyebrow and squeezed his hand lightly, and said that her walks were definitely not meant to be anything like Poe’s.

But she hadn’t been offended when he turned back early, and she’d helped him find his way back to the base. And even though she does still ask on the occasion, she’s never offended when he declines.

“Finn,” she says, warm.

“Rey,” he replies, equally warm, if a bit nervous. He leans to the side, subtly trying to peer over her shoulder. He doesn’t _see_ the Jedi, but he’s not even sure that he’d be able to. The First Order stories about the strange powers of the Force come rushing back.

“He said we should do this outside,” Rey explains easily, gesturing for him to follow her as she turns. “I came to get you.”

“It’s raining,” Finn feels obliged to point out. The skies are a pale grey, and although it’s not more than a determined, quiet drizzle, it’s still wet.

“I _know_ ,” she says, awe still coloring her tone. “It’s great.”

“Isn’t it- not that great for training? And talking? There’s going to be mud,” he adds, but falls into step next to her anyway as they enter the hallway.

“Yes, Finn, there is. That’s generally what happens when water and dirt mix.”

“I know it’s what happens,” he huffs, giving her an exasperated look. “But why are we going outside to do this in the rain?”

“Oh.” She seems to be giving that some thought, and Finn isn’t sure he finds that particularly reassuring. “He told me that when his formal training started, it was under worse conditions. He was laughing to himself a little, after that.”

“That’s not at all concerning, thanks,” Finn answers, dry.

“It’s a little weird, but it’s not raining that hard. And it’s not even that cold out, you’ll be fine. He probably just wants to walk and talk- and still not like your evening jaunts with Dameron,” she nudges him with an elbow, grinning a little. Finn purses his lips, feeling heat rise to his cheeks.

“It’s not like that and you know it. He’s just- being nice.”

“Very nice,” she agrees.

“Yes. Not- not like that kind of nice, don’t think I didn’t pick up on that tone.”

“Wait- really?”

“Yes, really.”

“I don’t know a whole lot about romance, I’ll admit, but I don’t think he treats everyone who shows up here like he treats you.”

“We have a connection. He didn’t flee the First Order in a stolen TIE fighter with anyone else who showed up here,” he points out, and Rey shrugs, which is as good as a concession from her.

“A connection doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to like you,” she continues, entirely reasonably. Like the thought that maybe Poe’s just doing this out of a sense of obligation doesn’t make him feel sick. “But he definitely does like you.”

“As a friend.”

“At the very least. He likes me, like a friend. He looks at you differently.”

“You just don’t give up, do you?”

“I’ve been told I’m very tenacious,” she says, primly, and Finn stifles a laugh. He’s almost certain he doesn’t want to know exactly how she managed to convince Skywalker to train her, in the end.

“That’s one way to put it,” is what he answers with, diplomatic. She just narrows her eyes at him, but any retort is lost as she opens up the nearest door- a rusted, old thing that Finn isn’t sure that most of the people on base even knows about, and steps into the rain.

He looks away, when she tips her face up to greet it, her eyes closing for a moment. Finn lingers in the doorway, looking at the heavy droplets that cascade down from the sky, and then further out, to where a man is waiting, clothes dark with moisture.

Finn doesn’t need to see his face to know who he is.

He can feel it, with that sixth sense that told him about all those deaths in the Hosnian system. The way he could feel Ren, when they fought. But where Ren was a bleeding wound, raw and red and still jagged with pain and rage, this man is calm. Steady. It’s like stepping into a quiet room after hours of chaos, like staring at the pond Poe had shown him in the forest, whose waters were as still as a mirror. It feels brittle, somehow.

Finn steps out into the rain, the drops hitting his head and shoulders and running in rivulets down his torso. The ground squelches beneath his feet, slick and muddy already. He’s aware of Rey as a distinct presence at his side; if he thinks about it, she feels smooth, like rock blasted with sand. Something brimming with slumbering power.

( _I wonder if that is how we feel, to them. I wonder if this Skywalker will be afraid of us- of me_ , Achilles muses.)

He comes to a stop a scant few feet away. Luke Skywalker looks- old. Worn. Not in the way that a hero or a legend should be, but in the way Finn distantly remembers some prisoners looked, when they were kept for interrogation for too long. His eyes are a piercing, bright blue, but there’s an old pain in them that Finn can still see the echoes of. A loss. A betrayal.

He knows the stories, of course. It’s one of the few things about the Force and its users that the Stormtroopers are taught, and it’s a particular point of pride for the Order. Kylo Ren’s ascension to the Dark Side is legendary, and the fact that it had led to the fall of the new generation of Jedi is even more important. It had been used to show that the First Order was absolute, infallible, unstoppable. That the ones who had toppled it of old were no longer capable of fighting back. Luke Skywalker may have defeated Darth Vader, but his own nephew had betrayed him- killed him, they’d all thought then, even though it hadn’t been said. And even as nothing but lowly foot soldiers, they’d known that Skywalker wouldn’t lift a finger against his family, against anyone else, again.

Or at least, Finn had known. The last Jedi was shrouded in mystery, then, even when they’d been allowed to believe that he’d vanished to the unknown regions to die. But Finn had thought that if he was out there, he wouldn’t come back. And if he did come back, he wouldn’t fight. The fact that Jedi didn’t kill wasn’t something he’d considered; he’d just thought that something like that would break a man.

Now, he can see that he’s right. Skywalker has aged more than his sister, his beard a tangle of silver and dark grey, and the hollows beneath his eyes are deep, wrinkles carved into his skin. And still, he looks at Finn, his eyebrows drawn together and his lips turned down into a frown.

( _Is this it?_ Achilles thinks, disappointment bitter on his tongue. _He is nothing like a great master of combat should be. He is nothing like the stories said he would be. This is a tired old man, weary of the world. He looks more likely to turn tail as soon as he can, go back to that planet he’d hidden away on to fade into the rock and die forgotten. His deeds may have been great, once, but this is not the life of a hero._ )

Heroes are never happy, Finn thinks, entirely unbidden, and he feels Achilles recoil from the thought though he doesn’t know why. Snippets of memory rise in him- a cave that glimmers with crystals, stars set above their heads, that same scrawny boy. Their faces are close together. They will be the first.

“This is Finn,” Rey says, her voice clear and even. The memory shatters in the wake of it, leaving Finn to tear his eyes away from Skywalker and look to her.

“I’m aware,” Skywalker answers, a touch of wryness in his voice. He sounds kind, but hoarse. Again, tired. He’s entirely unlike the General, whose sheer force of will and strength have carried her through so many losses. She stands tall despite them and brings war to the doorstep of those who took from her,

( _Athena_ )

While he has crumpled beneath the losses.

“Rey told me that you were Force Sensitive,” Skywalker speaks again, and he casts an appraising eye over Finn, one that makes him shift uncomfortably. He can’t help but think he’ll be found lacking, that Skywalker will turn away and say no, you were wrong, he isn’t right.

“She told me the same thing,” he answers, a little awkwardly.

“I said the same thing to you both,” Rey interjects, a little exasperated. Finn’s mouth curls up in a smile, and her words seem to cut loose the tension that was drawing taut like a string between them. “Now that we’ve established that I think he’s Force sensitive, are you going to be training him to? Was I…wrong?” Rey hesitates visibly even at that suggestion, and Achilles wants to sneer in affront.

( _She could never be wrong about me- us- being great, you know. I have the blood of a goddess and a king flowing through my veins._ )

Privately, Finn doesn’t believe that blood transfer works quite the same across entire lifetimes and reincarnations.

“No,” Skywalker says, slowly. Deliberately. He can see Rey’s shoulders slump in relief, and then straighten just as quickly once more. Achilles preens inside him. “No, I don’t think that you were. I don’t know precisely how strong the Force is, in you, Finn. But I suspect that it has manifested in subtler ways.”

“What do you mean?” Rey’s brow furrows as she asks, and Finn remembers her telling him of how violent her awakening was.

“We can’t all have our abilities manifest while in a mental battle with one who has fallen to the Dark Side, or indeed in a lightsaber fight with the same person,” Skywalker says, and again there’s that half-smile on his face. “Though I suppose your language abilities are part of it, I wouldn’t call that very much of a manifestation. More of an accelerated learning, from Jakku. So, what of you, Finn?”

“Poe and BB-8 have been trying to teach me Binary,” he answers, thinking back to it. “And Rey helps sometimes. I can’t understand a single word Chewbacca says, though.” Finn doesn’t say that even the letters of Basic look _wrong_ , sometimes, too angular when they should be round, the sounds foreign.

“Very few can,” Luke admits easily. “But the language is not essential. You fought my nephew too, I hear.”

“I did.”

“Your first time using a lightsaber?”

“Second. I had it on Takodana, at the castle. The Stormtroopers raided it when Ren went after Rey and BB-8 in the forest.”

“And?”

“It isn’t like anything I’ve ever used before,” Finn answers honestly. He flexes his fingers, remembering that thrum of power, of barely contained energy. And remembering that crackling red of Ren’s ‘saber, spitting death and a line of fire down his back. “I managed, but I don’t think that I was particularly proficient. Just desperate.”

( _And you had me_ , Achilles reminds him, not that he’d ever used a weapon like that before. But he learns quickly, and so Finn supposes that it did help.)

“Desperation is sometimes the key in matters like these,” Skywalker says with a shrug. “But you managed to wound him, and I’m certain that must take some aptitude. I won’t ask about telekinesis, as I’m sure you’d have noticed that, and mentioned it first.”

“It would be a difficult thing to overlook,” Finn agrees. “But there is one thing, I know for sure. When they used Starkiller, for the first time. On the Hosnian System.”

Skywalker looks pained at the mention of the eradication, and Finn himself has to tamp down on a flinch at the memory of so much loss, pulling at him. Rey hadn’t felt it, he knew, but she had told him some of what she’d seen in the castle, and what had transpired after. He supposes she didn’t exactly have much time to pay attention to other things.

“I saw it, from Takodana. And then I felt it,” he continues. The words feel inadequate as soon as he says them- is there really a way to describe so much death, so much destruction? But Skywalker seems to get the point, and he nods slowly, looking as if a new weight has rested on his shoulders. In a way, it’s another burden of his to bear. For all that he and Poe, he and Rey, would not have met if Skywalker hadn’t decided to go into a self-imposed exile, Finn knows that much death could have been prevented, if he hadn’t.

“As did I. Nearly an entire galaxy away, and I felt it too,” Luke Skywalker sighs, closing his eyes as if to shut out the world. “Just as I felt the awakening of young Rey, here, right after.”

“Is teaching me going to help stop something like that from happening again?” Finn asks, but it’s Achilles, too. Achilles, hungry for this new knowledge and the power it promises, does not want to waste time with something that will do no good. Finn doesn’t want to remain grounded here, when there is good that he could be doing somewhere else. He already has plans for the nebulous future, visiting more bases, rescuing the Stormtroopers who want to be rescued.

“Some Jedi were able to tell the future, in the Old Republic,” Skywalker says, as if this is an answer. Finn glances at Rey, but she has a mask of mildly irritated patience on, so he assumes that the point of this is coming soon. “There was a prophecy about my father, that said that he was the Chosen One that would bring balance to the Force. Or, they thought that it was about him. Later, Obi Wan and Yoda believed that it would be me. I think it’s safe to say that I managed it, for a time. But the truth is, I am not one of those gifted with prophecy. I cannot say whether or not your training will prevent a massacre like that again.”

( _Cryptic old men and prophecies yet again._ )

“But you think that it will help,” Finn prompts, hoping for a more concrete answer. It’s no wonder the Jedi were so easy to paint as weak and overly cautious- surely they need a lot of time to think over each other’s words in a conversation, if they were all like this.

“I think that being untrained in the Force is dangerous, regardless of the level of ability you might possess,” is what Skywalker says in response. “Rey has a raw power the likes of which I have seen only once. I didn’t fear it then, when I should have. And I don’t think that I’m making a mistake by not fearing it now.”

“And me?” Finn asks, frowning slightly.

“You, I think, will learn well. And you’ll already have quite a lot of combat training, formally speaking. It won’t be a replacement for learning lightsaber forms, but I highly doubt that we have the time to go hunting down crystals for you.”

“Does that mean I won’t be able to build one?”

“It means that you won’t yet. Rey informs me that she’s already started building her own, but it’s a process that’s highly personal and takes time. Or a family heirloom, but there aren’t many lightsabers freely available in the galaxy.”

“I can manage without one, but if it’s unlikely that I’ll build one, then don’t bother with the forms. Teach me-,” here, he pauses, thinking it over. “How to use the Force. Properly. Like Ren-,” he has to stop again, with how Skywalker’s face seems to ice over.

“Not _exactly_ like him,” he’s quick to amend. “But I saw him stop blaster bolts, once. It was the first time I’d seen someone use the Force in person.” The addition, the explanation, seems to be at least somewhat the right thing to say, because Skywalker relaxes slightly, and nods. “Do you think that I can do that?”

“Well, you can certainly try,” Skywalker says, and there’s the ghost of amusement on his face. Enthusiasm, perhaps, for an eager student.

( _I will do more than try_.)

!~!~!~!

**viii.**

He’s meditating when he sees her clearly for the first time. The woman who has always lingered like a haze just in the periphery of his vision, a spectre he has told no one about. Haunting him like the very manifestation of Force Ghosts he has since learned of, though there remains something other about her. She is not like Obi-Wan, who talks to Rey freely and laughs, younger than he ever was in life. He is not Yoda, doublespeak and riddles and Socratic dialogues and he is not Anakin, who speaks of flying and droids, broods and complains, and sometimes appears cloaked in Darkness on his worst days.

She is Other, simultaneously more and less diminished than a ghost. More wilful, less present; more watchful, less comforting. Luke Skywalker tells him that the Force Ghosts manifest because death is not truly the end and Achilles knows this to be impossible, to be false, and yet to be true all at once, but Finn? He’s seen it, and he so badly wants to believe it.

“I don’t know my mother,” Finn tells the woman who towers above him, bone-white like the uniform that caged him for so many years, lips red like the blood that had smeared it like a sacrifice, like an oath, in the desert. A flash of something in those eyes, deeper than an abyss, just as void of light. “I was taken from her, as a child. My father, too.”

“I am your mother,” she murmurs, voice as soft as the waves pounding against the cliff faces of Ahch-To.

 _No_ , he thinks. And then, “yes.”

“You remember.” This is not a question, only the bare-bone skeleton of a statement.

“Some, but not all. Mother,” he adds, unsure. For all Finn has wondered about his parents- a family to dream of on the loneliest nights after the hardest days, a longing he could never quite understand, he is not prepared for her. He could never have been prepared for this, even as some part of him unfurls in yearning.

“Achilles,” she says, and it is a command. “The gods hold no sway here, and yet still you are bound for glory, divinity fitting you in a different way, now. You will be the greatest warrior they have seen.”

Achilles stretches before these words, languishing like a beast in front a fire. But Finn, Finn has heard them before; ‘exemplary Stormtrooper’, ‘the best in the class’, ‘the ideal soldier’.

“I do not want that,” he blurts out, shaking his head. He ended up in Sanitation for a reason, he _chose_ not to fight. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He will _not_ be sculpted into a weapon again, into a brainless tool for the use of tyrants; he Aristos Achaion, yes, but he is Finn first in this life, and he knows what it is like to be used, and to be free.

Her expression shifts instantly, shuttering closed like a durasteel wall slamming down. When she opens her blood-red lips, her voice is colder than the ice on Hoth. “I am your mother.”

“I have no mother in this life,” Finn grits out, even as the part of him that is most truly Achilles cries out in rage, protesting this denial of the goddess that had birthed him, promised him glory and then given it to him.

“No,” Thetis replies, after a moment’s consideration, her black eyes narrowed. “No, I suppose you do not.”

“But I had one in another,” he ventures, more hesitant than Achilles had ever been. Her lip curls in contempt, but she nods.

“I was your mother in that life. I bore you in my womb, you were conceived of violence by the sea, and the sand tore at my skin as I bled. But you, my golden child, were the only good to come of that union. You could have had the world,” she says, matter-of-fact rather than wistful.

“Do you remember?” he blurts out, almost instantly, and nearly cringes to see the disgust evident on her face. Never had Thetis looked at _him_ like this.

“Here, I am but a ghost of what I once was. I am made of memories.” Another bitter twist of her mouth, like the words are sour on her tongue. “Memories, and the Force of this world.”

“Speak, then,” he commands, his fingers curled tight into fists and his heart pounding.

And she does.

!~!~!~!

After, he finds Poe.

His head hurts, a dull throb where Achilles’ impatience, his desire, bleeds out. He _remembers_ properly, now; he remembers everything as always, but he doesn’t know what to do. Or, Achilles knows what he wants to do, but Finn isn’t so sure. He knows what Poe was to him, in that life. But in this one, it’s not like that. He doesn’t even know if Poe likes _him_ like that, if it’s just the part of him that’s Patroclus coloring the way he looks at Finn. If Poe likes a version of Finn that doesn’t even exist, anymore.

But he goes anyway. Poe’s known at least some of this since they’ve met, he’s sure. Finn only remembers because of the Force, and Poe’s only encounter with it had been in the interrogation. He doesn’t know how to feel about that, either. If the trust between them, if that instant connection had in the end belonged to two different people, ghosts from the past stuck inside their heads.

Rey would say that he’s being ridiculous, Finn is sure of that. The General- he isn’t entirely sure what she would think, other than to include him more in meetings. But despite his princely training, Achilles had done little in terms of leadership and effort exerted. He didn’t need to try nearly as hard as Finn does, when he’s faced with the former ‘Troopers and Resistance fighters- he’d been born into authority, it had been in his blood. And Finn? Finn was born as nothing, and taught that he would be nothing and no-one apart from his number, no matter how much he excelled.

But he was a prince, a warrior, a leader. A legend. Someone from a prophecy, the child of a goddess and a mortal. He didn’t know goddesses existed before today, not in this world. But he’s grateful, at least, that Thetis is not some omen of the Dark Side, with fingers reaching out and a hungry, dripping maw that leads to nothing but bloodshed and carnage and loss.

He knocks on Poe’s door, louder than he means to. He knows the man’s schedule, knows that he’s either gotten back from a run or is due to return soon, but he didn’t want to wait and check the hangar. He wanted to be here, first, as soon as possible, even if it meant waiting outside Poe’s door for him to come back. There’s no one he can think about telling this to, no one else he knows will understand. For all Rey might be just like them, Briseis reborn, she does not remember like they do. Perhaps that was her gift, if she asked it. Perhaps she drank too deeply of the Lethe, if she were summoned there.

The door creaks open like it always does, and Poe’s on the other side, like he always is. Finn looks at him- curls tousled and eyes hazy with sleep, clad in standard issue sleeping clothes- and he can’t speak. It hits him then, and Achilles is surging forwards with true recognition for the first time, maybe because Finn remembers everything now, every stolen touch and secret kiss and the feeling of having lost him for the sake of protecting men who didn’t deserve it for what they had done. Then, it almost doesn’t matter that he can’t tell his feelings from Achilles’; they are one and the same. A joy that’s like flying, nearly a thousand times better than flying out in the TIE, like being named for the first time. And a relief that’s almost crippling, one that makes him weak at the knees. They’re here, they’re both here. They’ve survived this world and found each other. It’s all he can do not to yank him forwards and _kiss_ him like he’s been aching to for eternity.

(Achilles remembers mouths slightly sticky, the sweet aftertaste of fruit chased away and diluted, nothing in comparison to the satisfaction, the joy, of knowing this was his to have.)

Instead, he just yanks Poe into a hug, holds him tight and buries his face in those curls, breathes in his familiar scent. He can sense the hesitation, a mild twinge of confusion, but Poe hugs him back anyway. Finn lets himself lean against the other properly, letting out a shaky breath.

“What’s gotten into you, all of a sudden?” he asks, teasing. But beneath that, a hint of genuine concern.

“I- I remember,” he answers, and it feels inadequate in the face of the memories that burst forth. A life time’s worth of love and tragedy.

“You remember,” Poe repeats, his voice strangely tight. Finn can feel him tense up, the muscles in his shoulders going taut, and his arms freezing around him. Oh.

He didn’t want Finn to remember, did he? There’s no other explanation for it, for the sudden shift. Finn feels disappointment coat his mouth, bitter and thick as it slides down the back of his throat. It burns. Achilles is still in his head, insisting that Patroclus of course still loves him, that this is just something temporary, but- Finn knows better than that. He lets his arms fall to the side and takes a step back.

Somehow, when he speaks, his voice manages to be even. “Sorry, it was just, kind of an overwhelming experience.”

The excuse sounds hollow and it rings in his ears, but it’s the best he’s got. Finn turns around almost immediately after- he can’t bring himself to look at Poe, to see disgust or rage or disappointment in his assumption that Poe felt the same way, because Patroclus must. He still doesn’t know how much Poe remembers. He still doesn’t know if Poe even wants to think about their past, not when it was so violently ripped into remembrance by Ren and tainted forever. Or maybe he does feel the same, only he’s disappointed because Finn isn’t Achilles, not really. He’s not any of those things, that Patroclus had fallen in love with

( _He did not love me because I was a prince. And he did not love me because I could fight, or because I could have been stronger than the immortals on Olympus, had I lived. Had I been born of a godly union, rather than a forced one in an effort to dilute my strength. They said that I would be stronger than my father, so my father was made to be a mortal. But it is the best part of me, I believe. And it is what he loved._ )

There is nothing Finn can think in response to that. There’s only the sound of his own footsteps, too-fast as they thud against the metal floor, and the sick feeling that churns his stomach that comes from the knowledge that he’s just made a terrible mistake.

Poe doesn’t come after him, but that is a wound that stings slowly, later.

-

He runs into Luke Skywalker after dinner- eaten but barely tasted, with Finn brushing off nearly every attempt at conversation, an act that leaves him feeling guilty, strengthens the bitter taste in his mouth. Nearly colliding with the Jedi Master doesn’t exactly help things along, either.

“Master Luke.” The greeting falls from his mouth after he’s been jarred to a stop unceremoniously, stopped from topping over by what feels a solid wall of air. It’s the Force, he knows, and he rests a palm flat against the invisible barrier as he regains his balance.

“Finn,” the old man greets him with a nod. There’s no smile, but Finn has learned not to take that personally. “I didn’t get a chance to speak to you after today’s meditation. Rey said that she couldn’t find you, either, but it appears that I’ve had the good fortune to have run into you. Almost literally.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, a lie growing and then withering on his tongue. After Poe, it had been a simple matter to slip out of the compound itself. He’d found himself walking a familiar path along the perimeter, his feet used to habit, even if it had started to rain halfway through. He’d been soaked through by the second lap, but it had helped, somewhat. Achilles has very little memories to do with the rain, and it does not taste or smell like seawater. He wonders what the woman- Thetis, his mother- would have done, had he gone to Ahch-To, all water and sheer cliffs. He wonders if she would have spoken to him earlier. If she would have made the same offer she did to Achilles, so many lives ago- months under the ocean, in exchange for something truly greater. He wonders if this is something he would have chosen.

“Something is troubling you,” Skywalker says, resting a hand on Finn’s shoulder. The calm he seems to exude seeps into his bones, and Finn looses a slow sigh. They’re walking, Finn recognizing the route towards the empty hangar they use for training.

“I don’t know if it’s something that you’d be able to help with,” Finn admits. It’s not quite a hint to kindly go away, but it’s as close as he’s willing to get. He’s still unsure of if Skywalker will be able to understand- or if he’ll even believe Finn.

“There’s a great many things I can’t help with, that much is true. Leia says I’m still hopeless at choosing outfits, which is why it’s probably for the best that I ended up on Tattooine instead of Alderaan,” he says, almost amiably as they enter the hangar. His voice echoes in the high ceilings. Finn doesn’t say anything in response, though he privately thinks that the General was quite correct on her assessment of his ensemble.

“That aside, I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” Skywalker continues on, his hand dropping from Finn’s shoulder. The tranquillity hasn’t lessened, though, and he almost leans into it, taking the relief from the swirling turmoil of memories that are and aren’t his at the same time. “When we first met- well, it was clear that you were Force Sensitive, and that I’d be taking on a second pupil already. But there was also something else- nothing bad, there’s no need to make that face.”

Finn tries to rearrange his face into something more neutral, but from the rather pitying look on the Jedi’s face, he doesn’t think he’s particularly successful. Achilles hadn’t been a particularly skilled liar, if only because he rarely practiced it. Finn has been lying for most of his life as a Stormtrooper, but it is markedly easier with a mask on to hide it.

“The Force flows around you differently, you know,” Skywalker says, almost conversationally. “I’m not sure that you see it, or that Rey sees it, really- this is something that takes more years than you two have been practicing to learn. But sensing it is close enough, as you felt on Starkiller, with my nephew. You remember how he felt in the Force, yes?”

“Like a wound,” Finn says, unbidden. He shudders, his back burning along skin that has been healed so as not to leave a scar. But it still aches, when he thinks of Ren.

“That’s one way to put it, yes. Ben was always a troubled child, and I think that I failed him, in the end. Not by training him, but by not being careful enough with him. By not showing him how terrible the Dark Side really was.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that,” Finn interjects with a frown. “Nobody just- _decides_ to be like Kylo Ren. He’s a monster. I’ve seen it, Poe’s seen it, Rey’s seen it. We saw him kill Han, when he had a chance to leave it all behind.”

Skywalker’s smile is old, and so tired. “It’s never that simple, Finn. We always have a choice, yes, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that. And you forget that I know he destroyed everything I built from the ground up, after the Empire fell.”

Finn purses his lips together, looks at the ground. Achilles stirs, and there’s flashes of- a creature who is half man, half-something else, with a lower half sleek with fur and sporting four hooved legs. Centaur, the words comes to his mind, and a name. Chiron. He was old as the mountains and had taught heroes, Achilles tells him, and there’s a strange nostalgia attached to it.

“But you’re still teaching us,” Finn finally points out, shaking his head slightly to clear out the images.

“I am.” Skywalker is watching him, not strangely, but contemplatively. “But as I was saying. You feel different in the Force than anyone I’ve encountered before. Like the threads of it are wound tight around you, almost like they’re trying to hide something. Or perhaps more like you’re two people, instead of one. Strange, isn’t it?”

Finn stares for a moment, opens his mouth to make a deflection. What comes out instead is, “And does Poe feel the same way to you?”

“Poe Dameron?” The Jedi repeats, his brows drawing together, a frown tugging at his mouth. “Not since I saw him last- but he was young, then. Why?”

“What does the Force say about reincarnation?” he asks instead, fidgeting under that intense gaze.

“Death is not the end. We all return to the Force, from which we came,” is the answer that comes, and is entirely unsatisfying. It doesn’t explain _anything._ Not the life he keeps remembering that he lived, not the way Achilles is protesting that it’s not true at all- that there is an underworld, just as there are gods and goddesses. Or, at least there were, when there were still people that believed in them. “Of course, there are those that can return as Force Ghosts. It’s not the same as living, but it’s a manifestation of who you once were, temporarily. Obi-Wan was my first master, and when Vader killed him, this is what he came back as.”

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with what you think you see in the Force with me,” Finn sighs, scuffing his feet against the dented, scarred metal of the floor.

“No, it doesn’t. But you think that you have an explanation.”

“It sounds crazy.”

“I thought the Force sounded crazy, when I first heard of it. Trust me, I’ve lived through quite a lot in my day.”

“There’s these- memories, in my head. And they’re not mine. It’s not like they were _put_ there by anyone, either? They’re of a time and a place that I’ve never heard of before. And I’ve looked at a bunch of similar spots in the galaxy, when I could. Not in person, but there still wasn’t any real recognition there, either.”

“That’s strange. Perhaps they’re fragments of dreams, and they’re not memories, but something that takes place in the future?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, it could be, if it was just me, but it’s Poe, too. He remembers being someone else like that, and I don’t think that has anything to do with the Force. I mean, you’d know if it was, right?”

“I would, yes. This is getting stranger and stranger.”

“It’s an entire life,” he says, a little helplessly. “And there’s so much. I know that I’m not really that person- my _, his_ name was Achilles- but it feels like he’s getting stronger? More aware. It’s not that I’m worried that suddenly I’ll wake up and I’ll only be him, because I don’t really think it works that way. Not that I have any proof of that, other than just a feeling. But it’s getting harder to tell things apart, sometimes. And his mother- I saw her, today.”

“His…mother.” Finn figures he deserves the scepticism that holds.

“Her name is Thetis. She said that the Force is what is keeping her here- so it would be something similar to the Force ghosts you were telling me about. She was a sea goddess, and she had a child with a human. She said that she wanted him to be great.” This feels like an understatement; he remembers how her face had twisted with yearning, something powerful even after all those years and fading. “He was supposed to be- _Aristos Achaion_.” The phrase falls from his lips naturally, with the lilt of pride that Achilles has always felt saying it. “The best warrior of his generation, better even than some of the heroes that had come before him.”

“This goddess- what did she look like?” Skywalker asks, and Finn feels a thrum of hope. If he’s asking, he must have seen her somewhere. It isn’t a surprise that she may have been on Ahch-To; from what Finn has heard of it, from the descriptions that Rey has given him, he thinks that it would suit her, all roaring waves wearing down rock to nothing.

“Tall. She’s pale, like snow. Her eyes are black. She says that she’s been- watching me, and I swear that it’s true. I’ve seen her just barely out of the corner of my eyes. But I don’t think that she will, anymore.”

“It does sound like there’s a third party to confirm it, then. So, the good news is that you’re not crazy. Which is always a cause for celebration on its own. The bad is that I do not think any other Jedi has ever had quite the same experience. We know about Force ghosts, yes, but not about reincarnation. And if we did- that knowledge burned along with the temples in the first Fall, when the Empire was built. Any other scraps I manage to collect burned too, on Yavin 4. I’m not saying that there’s nothing out there, but if there is- I don’t know where. And I don’t think it’s particularly prudent to start looking, now. Maybe when all of this is over, you and Poe can search for it.”

“We could,” he echoes, shrugging slightly. “If you didn’t know anything, you could’ve just said from the beginning.”

“Almost certainly so.” Again, that slight spark of amusement. “But if there’s anything I learned from the two Jedi of the old Order that I did meet, it’s that to be a Master, one has to learn to speak in riddles. I doubt that I’ll ever truly surpass Yoda, in that, but as I get older, I can see why he did it.”

“It’s not particularly easy on the apprentice, you know,” Finn hazards. Achilles is- intrigued, by this interaction. The way it seems to hold an easy banter, the kind that he does not remember having with Chiron. He remembers a solemn face and always lessons, though they hardly seemed as such. And always, the lingering sense that this was preparation for something greater, the glow of pride that he could be taught nothing in the art of war, for he’d mastered it all already. This is something else entirely.

“I thought so as well, don’t worry. At least I haven’t made you carry me through a swamp and then eaten all your food,” Skywalker replies, and it’s surprising, how much younger he looks for a slightly crooked smile that tugs at his mouth, reshapes his face into something kinder. A grandfather, perhaps.

“Not yet. But- thanks. For letting me talk about this,” he says, after a moment of silence. Skywalker inclines his head, his eyes closing briefly. When they open again, that levity is gone, and they are old and worn down to the bone again.

“I made a mistake once, in not letting a padawan speak to me. In allowing him to think that he was alone, or that I would make his situation worse. His power isolated him from the others, drove him towards the Dark, and I watched it happen without reading the warning signs. I won’t do it again.”

He turns to leave, after that, with only a “goodnight, Finn,” to fill the silence before his worn, grey robes vanish through the doorway.

Those words linger heavily on his mind, even as he walks back to his room, settles down on his cot to stare up at the ceiling.

( _Strange, how enemies can garner sympathy like that. Evil is evil is evil. No matter its origins_.)

!~!~!~!

**Interlude**

A man kneels before the one he calls master, and he can still feel the phantom heat of his father’s blood on his hands. There is nothing for him to go back to, no forgiveness to be had despite the damnable call he still feels; the Light is still within him, faint, but refusing to be snuffed out. And, perhaps, he cannot bear to lose that last part of the boy he once was.

But there is no turning back, and he can still feel the sheer pressure and dizzying power of his master’s presence. It pounds in his head, scrapes against his skull and claws its way in, throbs in the pulp of his teeth and drips from his nose, dark in the scant light against the cold floor.

A whisper of cloth robes against old stone smoothed out by footsteps of hundreds before them. Always one to kneel, and crave power, and another to teach and have it. The pressure in his head mounts, and he grits his teeth and opens himself to the pain. It can only make him stronger, after all, and he would and has flayed himself bare just to taste that power once more.

“You are weak, Kylo Ren,” the Supreme Leader hisses, and every word is a scourge against his skin. He knows this already, and it burns. “I _chose_ you, sought you out, and you came to me in return. And I told you that I would nurture the spark of greatness I saw in you, the spitting image of your grandfather. Was I mistaken to do this?”

“No, Supreme Leader,” he manages to respond, though his voice is contemptibly uneven.

“I have taught you all that you need,” Snoke continues on, as if Ren hadn’t spoken at all. “Do not fail me a second time, Kylo Ren. Not even you are invaluable.”

“I won’t. I will end Skywalker, and the scavenger girl, and we will crush the Resistance,” he vows, lips curling down into a near snarl.

“Good. General Hux and the Stormtroopers await. Gather your knights and join them in my fleet, and _go_.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

The pressure alleviates, and Ren is left gasping for breath, even as he forces himself to stand, wipes the blood dripping from his nose clean with the back of a gloved hand.

He does not bow as he goes.

!~!~!~!

**ix.**

They have no warning at all, when it comes.

Poe- well, he should be surprised, but he really isn’t; he wasn’t idiot enough to believe the First Order would stay down for long. But apparently he was idiot enough to believe that they wouldn’t strike fast, hit home while people were celebrating, complacent. Starkiller was a loss, and a devastating one, but for something where lives are replaceable and soldiers are nothing but pawns, it is easy to recover.

( _this is what war has become_ , says the voice in his head, vaguely repulsed. _How uncivilized it is. Dishonorable_.)

It’s not really a statement he can disagree with, to be fair. But the First Order was never going to be honourable- its goal is extermination, not victory. It would never have been satisfied only to rule- destruction and the Dark Side, is what it wants.

The alarms wake them first, blaring klaxons and a call to assembly, to X-wings and cannons and blasters and whatever it is they’ve scrounged up in terms of weaponry on base. He’s out of bed and shoving his feet into shoes before he’s even properly awake, Finn sitting up ramrod straight beside him and doing the same. Faster, too, with motions engrained in muscle memory. Conditioning, no doubt, and Poe figures he can find the time to be repulsed, later.

He pauses, hesitates.

( _Battle is where we’re going, and there is no telling if or how we’ll come back_ )

And presses a single, brief kiss to Finn’s mouth, still a little slack with sleep. He has to pull away before he can elicit more than a half-startled, half-approving noise. Outside, there’s a booming thud like the beat of a great drum, and the ground quakes beneath them. Bombs, then. Finn pulls on that worn leather jacket, and then they’re racing down the corridor, with an entire flow of people- there’s no panic, here. There’s fear, acceptance, a grim determination to see this through to the bitter end. However quickly it may come.

When he splits from Finn, heading to the hangar while the other dashes off to find Rey and Skywalker, he sends up a quick prayer to long-dead gods that the man will stay safe. That they’ll both survive through it.

(Patroclus knows that the gods so rarely give favors, and never without a cost. He’ll rely on their own skills, now. The way Poe flies like he’s blessed, like he’s a god of his own making, dangerous and reckless and so, so brave. The way a hero should be. That, he thinks, is what fate favors.)

\--

It’s chaos. There’s no other words for it. Poe’s not safe, not by a long-shot, but he’s a sight better than those on the ground as he leads his squadron in tandem with the others to manage a concerted attack on the TIEs and larger craft that hover like wasps on the horizon. The shuttles are better, at least, if only because they’ve stopped bombing for now, though Poe suspects that if the Resistance starts winning, that’ll soon change.

He’s got General Organa’s voice in his ear, steady and wise, and Jessika’s too, and the moves they’ve practiced in formation a thousand and one times are being pulled off perfectly. Everyone knows how important this is, to take out as many of the First Order ships as they can. Even if they’re outnumbered, ten to one. Even if their fleet isn’t half-patched up. Poe knows they’re going to make it, because they have to, because every single person in the Resistance is here because the First Order took something from them, and now it’s time to take it back.

( _Vengeance, then. It’ll keep us alive and well, burn hot and consume. Another reason to win._ )

They have nothing left to lose, after all. So Poe doesn’t look back, when he sees X-wings fall and combust out of the corner of his eyes, nor does he allow himself to mourn or grieve when he can hear garbled screams as the comms cut off, or repeated pleas for backup. There’s going to be time for that later- the dead can wait, they have to. And if he can make it so that they didn’t die for nothing, well, then that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

He tries to rally the remnants of the Black and Red Squadrons, get them to fall into a formation, but there’s only so much order that can be maintained when there’s a sea of TIE fighters and shuttles gunning for them, gunning them all down. Another ship goes down, just to his left, and Poe grits his teeth and shoots his X-wing forwards, pulling up sharply at the last moment after delivering a plasma charge straight to the glass of the HUD. It’s with a hollow vindication, that he watches the ship burn.

He curses, the sound lost in the din surrounding them, even through his X-wing. It’s riskier and riskier moves, urged on by desperation because they’re losing, badly, and he-

For the first time, Poe doesn’t know if they’ll pull through. They have to, and they always have before, and this cannot be the end of everything everyone here has fought and bled and died for. He will not give up what they’ve fought so hard to win, but. _But._ There are some things that sheer determination can’t overcome. The numbers are one of them.

He knows that they’ll fight until there’s nothing left, until the ground runs red with blood and corpses litter the field where the Resistance fought and died. He hopes that General Organa will have gotten away. He hopes that Finn, and Rey, and Luke Skywalker will have gone, too. Because they’re the important ones, in the end. They’re the inspirations, the success stories, the real threats to the First Order. And Poe? He’s just a pilot, in the end; even if he’s the best one there is, he’s not the face of the Resitance, not like the others have become. And it’s fine. His place is here, inspiring the people that have already joined. Even as their friends die in droves around them.

It’s a grim thought, and it’s grim work, and there are times like right now where any kind of solace feels hollow and forced, any attempt to change morale will fall short. But it doesn’t matter, now. They’re just fighting to survive.

And they are, but it’s happening too slowly. He guns down a TIE fighter, only to see three more take its place on his tail, swarming around him like insects.

-

They fall.

Patroclus remembers that fate has always favoured tragedy, too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it. Please comment if you have anything to add on the characterizations especially!  
> <3  
> (Stay tuned for Part 2).


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